These are the very same causes and effects which we mayperceive in respect to improved means of transport; which notmerely yield in themselves a revenue, and through it a return forthe capital spent upon them, but also powerfully promote thedevelopment of manufactures and agriculture, whereby they increasein the course of time the value of the landed property within theirdistricts to tenfold the value of the actual material capital whichhas been employed in creating them.The agriculturist, incomparison with the undertaker of such works (improved means oftransport), has the great advantage of being quite sure of histenfold gain on his invested capital and of obtaining this profitwithout malting any sacrifices, while the contractor for the worksmust stake his whole capital.The position of the agriculturist isequally favourable as compared with that of the erector of newmanufactories.
If, however, this effect of manufactures on agriculturalproduction, on rent, and therefore on the value of landed property,is so considerable and advantageous for all who are interested inagriculture; how, then, can it be maintained that protectivemeasures would favour manufactures merely at the cost of theagriculturists?
The material prosperity of agriculturists, as well as of allother private persons, principally depends on the point that thevalue of what they produce shall exceed the value of what theyconsume.It, therefore, is not so important to them thatmanufactured goods should be cheap, as especially that a largedemand for various agricultural products should exist, and thatthese should bear a high value in exchange.Now, if measures ofprotection operate so that the agriculturist gains more by theimprovement of the market for his own produce than he loses by theincrease of the prices of such manufactured goods as he requires tobuy, he cannot rightly be described as making a sacrifice in favourof the manufacturer.This effect is, however, always observable inthe case of all nations who are capable of establishing amanufacturing power of their own, and in their case is mostapparent during the first period of the rise of the nativemanufacturing industry; since just at that time most of the capitaltransferred to manufacturing industry is spent on the erection ofdwelling houses and manufactories, the application of water power,&c., an expenditure which chiefly benefits the agriculturist.
However much in the beginning the advantages of the greater sale ofagricultural produce and of its increased value outweighs thedisadvantage of the increased price of manufactured goods, so mustthis favourable condition always increase further to the advantageof the agriculturists, because the flourishing of the manufactoriesalways tends in the course of time continually more and more toincrease the prices obtainable for agricultural produce and tolessen the prices of manufactured goods.
Further, the prosperity of the agriculturist and landedproprietor is especially dependent on the circumstance that thevalue of the instrument from which his income is derived, namely,his landed property, at least maintains its former position.Thisis not merely the chief condition of his prosperity, but frequentlyof his entire economical existence.For instance, it frequentlyhappens that the annual production of the agriculturist exceeds hisconsumption, and nevertheless he finds himself ruined.This occursif while his landed property is encumbered with money debts, thegeneral credit becomes fluctuating; if on one side the demand formoney capital exceeds the supply of it, and on the other hand thesupply of land exceeds the demand.In such cases a generalwithdrawal of money loans and a general offer of land for salearises, and consequently land becomes almost valueless, and a largenumber of the most enterprising, active, and economical landcultivators are ruined, not because their consumption has exceededtheir production, but because the instrument of their production,their landed property, has lost in their hands a considerableportion of its value, in consequence of causes over which they hadno control; further, because their credit has thereby becomedestroyed; and finally, because the amount of the money debts withwhich their landed property is encumbered is no longer inproportion to the money value of their possessions, which hasbecome depressed by the general worthlessness of landed property.
