For, whatever may be the saving effected by an extensive partnership, such partnership does not affect the natural laws by which population increases faster than capital. The diminution of the returns to capital must occasion poverty to a multiplying society, whether those returns are appropriated by individuals under the competitive system, or equally distributed among the members of a co-operative community. The same checks to the deterioration of the resources of society are necessary under each system. These are, (in addition to the agricultural improvements continually taking place,)— 1. The due limitation of the number of consumers. 2. The lightening of the public burdens, which at present abstract a large proportion of profits and wages. 3. A liberal commercial system which shall obviate the necessity of bringing poor soils into cultivation. ----- The wealth of society naturally distributes itself between two classes of capitalists, from one of which a portion descends to a third class,—the labourers. The two classes of capitalists are, first, the owners of land or water,—of the natural agents of production,—and next, the farmers of land or water, or those who employ, by the application of capital, the natural agents of production. Each of the three classes obtains his share by purchase,—original, or perpetually renewed—the landowner by the secondary or hoarded labour of his ancestors or of his youth; the capitalist by hoarded labour, and the purchased labour of his servants; and the labourer by primary labour. The landowner receives his share as rent; the capitalist as profits; the labourer as wages. Real RENT is that which is paid to the landowner for the use of the original, indestructible powers of the soil. The total rent paid by a farmer includes also the profits of the capital laid out by the landowner upon the estate. Land possesses its original, indestructible powers in different degrees. The most fertile being all appropriated, and more produce wanted, the next best soil is brought into cultivation; then land of the third degree, and so on, till all is tilled that will repay tillage. An unequal produce being yielded by these different lands, the surplus return of all above the lowest goes to the landowner in the form of rent. The same thing happens when repeated applications of capital are made to the same land for the sake of increasing its productiveness. The produce which remains over the return to the least productive application of capital goes to the landowner in the form of rent. RENT, therefore, consists of that part of the return made to the more productive portions of capital, by which it exceeds the return made to the least productive portion. New lands are not tilled, and capital is not employed for a less return, unless the produce will pay the cost of production. A rise of prices, therefore, creates, and is not created by, rent.