partie du produit du travail, dont la valeur soit purement
nominale, et n'ait rien de reelle: c'est en effet le resultat de
l'augmentation de prix qu'obtient un vendeur en vertu de son
privilege, sans que la chose vendue en vaille reellement
d'avantage.'(3) The prevailing opinions among the more modern
writers in our own country, have appeared to me to incline
towards a similar view of the subject; and, not to multiply
citations, I shall only add, that in a very respectable edition
of the Wealth of nations, lately published by Mr Buchanan, of
Edinburgh, the idea of monopoly is pushed still further. And
while former writers, though they considered rent as governed by
the laws of monopoly, were still of opinion that this monopoly in
the case of land was necessary and useful, Mr Buchanan sometimes
speaks of it even as prejudicial, and as depriving the consumer
of what it gives to the landlord.

In treating of productive and unproductive labour in the last
volume, he observes,(4) that, 'The net surplus by which the
Economists estimate the utility of agriculture, plainly arises
from the high price of its produce, which, however advantageous
to the landlord who receives it, is surely no advantage to the
consumer who pays it. Were the produce of agriculture to be sold
for a lower price, the same net surplus would not remain, after
defraying the expenses of cultivation; but agriculture would be
still equally productive to the general stock; and the only
difference would be, that as the landlord was formerly enriched
by the high price, at the expense of the community, the community
would now profit by the low price at the expense of the landlord.
The high price in which the rent or net surplus originates, while
it enriches the landlord who has the produce of agriculture to