Page:Manual of Political Economy.djvu/29

Rh xviii Contents, Chapter V. Profits, Profits are composed of the three following elements: interest on capital ; compensation for risk ; wages of superintendence— E^h trade has a certain rate of profit peculiar to itself — This is termed the natural rate of profit— The profits realised in each trade constantly approximate to the natural rate — How profits are restored to the natural rate when they are temporarily raised above it or depressed below it — The causes which determine the general average rate of profit — In what sense Ricardo's proposition is true, that the rate of profit depends on wages— The rate of profit really depends upon the cost of labour — The high rate of profit prevailing in Australia explained— Cost of labour is a function of the three following variables : the efficiency of labour ; the amount of wages estimated in produce ; and the cost at which this produce can be purchased — The effect of each of these three causes upon the rate of profit illustrated — Capitalists and labourers are both benefited by an increase of the efficiency of labour and by a diminution of the cost of the necessaries of life — The benefit to the labourer will only be temporary if an increase of population is stimulated — The influence exerted on profits and wages by the export of capital PAGES 163—186 Chapter VI. Peasant-Proprietors, Distinction between a peasant-proprietor and a small tenant-farmer — When land is rented, large farms are more advantageous in England than small farms — Peasant-proprietors of Flanders and Norway — The testimony of Arthur Young, Mr. Thornton and others, concerning peasant-proprietors— The aggregation of land in England is promoted partly by artificial and partly by natural causes— The effects of the laws of primogeniture and entail considered, also the influence exerted by the costly system of conveyancing — The effect of the law of entail has been moaified bv the Settled Land Act of 1882 — The social effects of peasant-proprietorship considered — The condition of our own agricultural labourers and that of the peasant-proprietors of the Continent contrasted — Mr. Jones's opinion refuted, that peasant- proprietors are imprudent with regard to marriage — It is erroneous to suppose that the advocates of the system of peasant properties desire the introduction of the French law of compulsory subdivision — The combined advantages resulting from large farming and peasant properties may be secured if land is owned and cultivated by associations of labourers— The emancipation of the serfs in Russia will extend upon a vast scale the system of peasant properties — The land reforms, carried out in Prussia by Stein and Hardenoerg, quoted to show the advantages Russia may anticipate from the emancipation of her serfs— The Irish Land Act, 1881, is likely to effect a great improvement in the character of the Irish peasantry by conferring on them certain proprietary rights in the land they cultivate — Inter- ference between landlord and tenant is to be justified on grounds of public interest rather than as giving protection to a special class of traders 187 — 210 Digitized by Google