[Footnote 158-3: The average rent in England was, in 1815, 17s. 3d. In the counties, it was highest in Middlesex, 38s. 9d.; in Rutland, 38s. 2d.; Leicester, 27s. 3d.; lowest in Westmoreland, 9s. 1d. In Wales, the average was 7s. 10d.; highest in Anglesea, 19s.; lowest in Merioneth, 4s. 8d. In Scotland the average was 5s. 1½d.; highest, Midlothian, 24s. 6½d.; lowest, Highland Caithness, Cromarthy, Inverness and Rosse, from 1s. 1d. to 1s. 5d.; Orkneys, 8½d.; Sutherland, 6d.; Shetlands, 3d. In Ireland, the average was 12s. 9d.; highest in Dublin, 20s. 1½d.; lowest, Donegal, 6s. (_McCulloch_, Stat., I, 544 ff.; Yearbook of general Information, 1843, 193.) In France, _Chaptal_, De l'Industrie Fr., 1819, I, 209 ff., estimates the average yield per _hectare_ at 28 francs; in the Department of the Seine, 216; Nord, 69.56; Lower Seine, 67.85; in the upper Alps, 6.2; in the lower Alps, 5.99: in the Landes, 6.25. While in the Landes, only 20 francs a _hectare_ are frequently paid, the purchase price in the neighboring Medoc is sometimes 25,000 francs. (Journal des Economistes, Jan. 15, 1851.) In Belgium, the average price of agricultural land is 52.46; in East Flanders, 53.19; in Namur, 29.24. (_Heuschling_, Statistique, 77.)] SECTION CLIX. HISTORY OF RENT.--RENT AND THE GENERAL GOOD. We so frequently hear rent called the result of the monopoly[159-1] of land, and an undeserved tribute paid by the whole people to landowners, that it is high time we should call attention to the common advantage it is to all. There is evidently danger that, with the rapid growth of population, the mass of mankind should yield to the temptation of gradually confining themselves to the satisfaction of coarse, palpable wants; that all refined leisure, which makes life and the troubles that attend it worth enduring, and which is the indispensable foundation of all permanent progress and all higher activity, should be gradually surrendered. (See § 145.) Here rent constitutes a species of reserve fund, which grows greater in proportion as these dangers impend by reason of the decline of wages and of the profit of capital, or interest.[159-2] Besides, precisely in times when rent is high, the sale and divisibility of landed estates act as a beneficent reaction against the monopoly of land, which is always akin to the condition of things created by rent.