It is frequently said, that the price paid for land is greater than the money-capital which yields an equal revenue.[154-4] This, abstraction made of proletarian distress prices for small parcels of land and of the political and social privileges of landowners, is accounted for by the assumed greater security of the latter,[154-5] which, however, fares ill enough in war times, and times of political disturbance. The fact itself is found to exist, I think, only in economically progressive times, when confidence prevails, and it is based on the pretty certain prospect that the rate of interest will decline, while rents will rise.[154-6] It has been observed in Belgium, that the medium farm rent of land, in quarters remarkable for any economic peculiarity whatever, pays an interest lower, as compared with the purchase money, in proportion as the country about is more thickly populated, and as its husbandry is carried on by farmers instead of by owners.[154-7] This phenomenon is doubtless correlated with these others, that the conditions just named are pretty regularly attendant on a high state of civilization, and that advanced civilization is attended uniformly by a decline in the rate of interest. (175).[154-8] [Footnote 154-1: In every day language, people say of a man who has purchased a piece of land, that he "put" as much capital as is equal to the purchase price "into his land;" or "laid out on it" as much. But this mode of expression is as inaccurate as is this other: "the sun is rising," or "the sun has gone down."] [Footnote 154-2: _Macleod_, who is not fond of the natural mode of expression, maintains that the purchase price of a piece of land is equal to the discounted value of the sum of the values of all the future products to be obtained from the land. (Elements, 75.)] [Footnote 154-3: C:i::L:r in which C = the capital, i = its interest, L = the piece of land, and r = its rent.] [Footnote 154-4: There are traces to be found of the fact among the ancient Greeks, that the farm-rent of landed estates paid a smaller interest on the purchase money than was otherwise usual in the country. _Isaeus de Hagn._, 42; _Salmasius_, De Modo Usur., 848.] [Footnote 154-5: Thus even _North_ and _Locke_, loc. cit.; _Cantillon_, Nature du Commerce, 294.]