I have hitherto been considering the theory of agricultural rents;I now pass to a subject of perhaps greater present importance -ground-rents in towns.If the rise in the rent of agricultural lands has been great,the rise in that of urban properties has been still more striking.A house in Lombard Street,the property of the Drapers'Company,was in 1668let for *25;in 1887the site alone was let for *2600.How do we account for this?It is the effect of the growth of great towns and of the improvements which enable greater wealth to be produced in them,owing to the development of the arts,and to the extension of banking and credit.Are town rents then a cause of the rise in prices?Certainly not.Rent may be an element in price,but the actual amount of rent paid depends upon these two things:the demand of the population for commodities,which determines price,and the value of a particular site for purposes of business.
These considerations bring us to the question now sometimes raised:is rent a thing which the State can abolish?Is it a human institution,or the result of physical causes beyond our control?If we abolish agricultural rent,the result would simply be,as Ricardo says,that the rent would go into the pockets of the farmers,and some of them would live like gentlemen.Rent itself is the result of physical causes,but it is within our power to say who shall receive the rent.This seems a fact of immense importance,but the extent of its significance depends largely on the future course of rent in England;and so we are bound to inquire whether Ricardo was right in assuming that rents must necessarily rise in a progressing state.Many think the contrary,and that we are now on the eve of a certain and permanent fall in agricultural rents;and if rents continue steadily to fall,the question will become one of increasing insignificance.As means of communication improve,we add more and more to the supply of land available for satisfying the wants of a particular place;and as the supply increases,which it is likely to do to an increasing extent,the price of land must fall.Social causes have also influenced rents in England,and social changes are probably imminent,which will at once reduce the value of land for other than agricultural purposes,and increase the amount of it devoted to agriculture.Such changes would likewise tend to diminish rent.We may say therefore that,since there are these indications of a permanent fall in rents,so great a revolution as the transference of rent from the hands of private owners to the nation would not be justified by the amount which the nation would acquire.The loss and damage of such a revolution would not be adequately repaid.
But will rent in towns fall?Here it is impossible to predict.For instance,we cannot say whether London will continue to grow as rapidly as it has done heretofore.Now it is the monetary centre of the world;owing to the greater use of telegraphy,it is possible that it may not retain this pre-eminence.The decay of the provincial towns was largely due to the growth of great estates,which enabled their proprietors to live and spend in London;but if changes come to break up these large properties,London will cease to be the centre of fashion,or at any rate to have such a large fashionable population.Politics,moreover,are certainly tending to centre less in London.And further inventions in the means of locomotion and the greater use of electricity may result in causing a greater diffusion of population.
