High price, if the expression be used in this sense, cannot then be called a _cause_ of rent; it cannot be said "that the immediate cause of rent is obviously the excess of price above the cost of production, at which raw produce sells in the market," for that excess is itself rent. Rent, Mr. Malthus has defined to be "that portion of the value of the whole produce which remains to the owner of the land, after all the outgoings belonging to its cultivation, of whatever kind, have been paid, including the profits of the capital employed, estimated according to the usual and ordinary rate of the profits of agricultural stock at the time being." Now whatever sum this excess may sell for, is money rent; it is what Mr. Malthus means by "the excess of price above the cost of production at which raw produce sells in the markets;" and therefore in an inquiry into the causes which may elevate the price of raw produce, compared with the cost of production, we are inquiring into the causes which may elevate rent. In reference to the first cause of the rise of rent, Mr. Malthus has the following observations: "We still want to know why the consumption and supply are such as to make the price so greatly exceed the cost of production, and the main cause is evidently the _fertility_ of the earth in producing the necessaries of life. Diminish this plenty, diminish the fertility of the soil, and the excess will diminish; diminish it still further, and it will disappear." True, the excess of necessaries will diminish and disappear, but that is not the question. The question is, whether the excess of their price above the cost of their production will diminish and disappear, for it is on this, that money rent depends. Is Mr. Malthus warranted in his inference, that because the excess of quantity will diminish and disappear, therefore "the cause of the _high price_ of the necessaries of life above the cost of production is to be found in their abundance, rather than in their scarcity; and is not only essentially different from the high price occasioned by artificial monopolies, but from the high price of those peculiar products of the earth, not connected with food, which may be called natural and necessary monopolies?" Are there no circumstances under which the fertility of the land, and the plenty of its produce may be diminished, without occasioning a diminished excess of its price above the cost of production, that is to say, a diminished rent? If there are, Mr. Malthus's proposition is much too universal; for he appears to me to state it as a general principle, true under all circumstances, that rent will rise with the increased fertility of the land, and will fall with its diminished fertility.