UNDERSTAND BEFORE YOU COMPLAIN.
“Angus!” said Murdoch, the next morning, “look through your glass, and
tell me if you see Mr. Callum’s boat yet. The day is none of the
clearest, but there is a gleam passing over the Sound at this moment.”
The mountains were wholly hidden and a dark grey cloud hung round the
horizon; but, after a little patient watching, Angus saw a boat emerging
from the mist, and observed that a sail was hoisted and began to swell
with the breeze which was chasing the fogs.
“I have not seen such a bark since the laird left us,” observed Angus;
“and she is full of people and heavily laden. There is company coming,
unless Mr. Callum is bringing over the tenants of the new house down
below.”
“That can hardly be, Angus; for the tenant of that house stands at your
elbow.”
“Well, you can keep a secret, I must own,” said Angus, laughing.
“However, I am truly glad, neighbour, that you think so much better of
your affairs than you did as to venture on following two occupations.”
When Murdoch explained that he was going to quit the farm this very day,
and should have no further interest in it after receiving an equivalent
for his growing crops, he was surprised to see how pleased Angus looked,
and asked the reason.
“You know how much I wish for more neighbours,” was the reply, “and for
improved tillage and increased traffic, and you cannot therefore wonder
that I am glad to find that the soil is likely to be taken care of now
that I have done my best for it.”
“But are you not vexed to give it up, Angus? Would not you like to have
kept it yourself?”
“I!” said Angus. “I have something else to do. My packet and Ella’s farm
will be as much as I can manage.”
“Well, I always thought you wished to keep the management of these
fields!”
“I wonder at that. Our engagement terminates to-day, you know. Was not
that made clear from the beginning, neighbour?”
“O yes.” Murdoch had no more to say. So Angus proceeded to Ella’s
dwelling, where he had promised to be present when the lease was talked
over.
Mr. Callum appeared immediately after landing, leaving the new tenants
and the Murdochs to settle themselves each in their dwelling,—a
proceeding which took very little time where there was but a small stock
of furniture, and where nobody dreamed of cleaning an empty house before
it was again occupied.
Mr. Callum explained that blanks were left in the lease, which were to
be filled up when the parties should have agreed upon the yearly rent to
be paid. It was necessary that he should survey the place afresh, and
that they should know that they no longer had the fishery to themselves.
Ella was prepared for this; but not so Ronald, for finding that by
tilling his piece of moorland he had created a rent on his sister’s
field. It was in vain that he wished he had let it alone at present,
that he remonstrated, that he grew angry: Mr. Callum was right, and kept
his temper, and was moreover supported by Angus and Ella against the
opposition of the two lads.
“But Ella had nothing to do with it,” argued Ronald. “It comes into my
share, and it is very hard that she should have to pay for what I have
taken it into my head to do.”
“This is no concern of the laird’s or mine,” replied Callum. “We let the
whole to your sister, and all we have to do is to ascertain the
difference in the productiveness of different parts, and to charge
according to the average.”
“Besides,” observed Angus, “the case would have stood the same if
Murdoch or any body else had tilled the moor. Rent is not an arbitrary
demand of the landlord, but a necessary consequence of the varying
qualities of the soil.”
Callum grew very civil towards Angus at once.
“You have seen much of the world, Mr. Angus; and I dare say you have
found discontent wherever you went upon this subject of rent. The
farmers will have it that the landlord lowers their profits.”
“And the people,” observed Angus, “that rent is an arbitrary tax imposed
on the consumer: each of which notions is as mistaken as the other.”
“I cannot say,” observed Ella, “that it is the laird that lessens my
profits. He asked for no rent while my field was the lowest soil tilled;
and he never would have asked it, if a worse land had not been taken
into cultivation. It is therefore the different degree of fertility
which causes rent, and not the will of the landlord.”
“And when the people complain,” said Angus, “that rent is paid by the
consumer as an arbitrary tax, they forget or do not know that rent is
the consequence and not the cause of high price. Your barley bannocks
and Murdoch’s look pretty much alike on the table, and would sell for
the same price; but yours are produced at near double the cost of his,
and therefore Murdoch pays the laird a part of the profits of his.”
“And very fair,” observed Callum; “and so it will be with your fish in a
little while, Mrs. Ella. Murdoch will sell fish which look like yours,
and at the same price: but it will have cost him more time and labour to
get them, and therefore the laird calls on you for a part of the profits
which you have till now kept to yourself, and would have kept still if
the fish had not brought a good enough price to tempt Murdoch to try his
luck.”
Angus hoped that rent would go on to rise, being, as it is, a symptom of
prosperity. Ronald wondered he could say so; for his part, he wished
there was no such thing as rent.
Angus explained that as rent rises in consequence of a rise of prices,
and a rise of prices shows that the article is in request, and that
there are purchasers able to buy it, a rise of rent is a symptom of
wealth, though many people err in supposing it a cause.
Mr. Callum observed that many wished for an abolition of rent, because
they thought high prices an evil in every case.
“Well,” said Fergus, “surely everybody had rather pay little than much
for a peck of oatmeal.”
“That depends on what causes the prices to be low or high,” replied
Callum. “If I take upon myself to forbid anybody in these islands to buy
oatmeal in Lorn when they have not enough at home, or if a bad season
should make a scarcity, and prices should rise in consequence, such a
rise of prices would be an evil, because the people would not have any
more wealth to give in exchange than if the meal was plentiful. But if
(which is a very different case) farmers find that their customers have
money enough to buy more and more oatmeal, and make it worth the
farmers’ while to take poorer and poorer soils into cultivation, the
consequent rise of price is no evil. It not only shows that wealth is
increasing, but also helps to increase it;—it causes oats to grow where
only heather grew before.”
“But after all,” said Ronald, “the landlord gets all the benefit of the
change. He grows richer and richer, the more prices rise.”
“Not so,” replied Angus. “Do not you remember my telling you that there
is a perpetual tendency to render the productiveness of land more equal
by improvements in the art of cultivation? and rent depends not on the
quantity produced, but on the inequality in the productiveness of soils.
An estate which once yielded one-third of its produce to the landlord
may afterwards yield him only one-fourth, and then again one-fifth,
though he may receive a larger amount of rent each time.”
“This has actually been the case,” said Callum; “and therefore it is a
mistake to say that the landlord has all the advantage of a rise of
prices.”
“I should like to know,” said Fergus, “what would happen if landlords
had no rent, and so bread became cheaper.”
“If landowners gave away their land! Very reasonable truly!” exclaimed
Callum.
“I rather think,” said Angus, “that the first consequence would be that
there would soon be no landlords. All land would be in the possession of
those who would cultivate it themselves, and then, in consequence of a
fall of prices, inferior lands would be let out of tillage, there would
be less food raised, and things would go back to the state they were in
centuries ago.”
“But if not,” persisted Fergus,—“if they did not sell their land, but
lent it without receiving any pay, bread would be cheaper surely, and
that would be a good thing.”
“Far from it,” replied Angus. “The next thing would be that we should
have a famine.”
“A famine from bread being cheaper!”
“Yes; for you must remember that we could not make the ground yield in a
hurry any quantity of grain we might happen to want. We have already
seen that land would not produce more for rent being abolished, and we
shall soon see that it would produce less; and if less was produced
while the price was so lowered as to tempt people to consume more, a
famine would soon overtake us.”
“If,” said Ella, “we have no more oatmeal in the islands than will last
till next harvest at the present price, and if people are tempted to use
more by the price being lowered, do not you see that the supply will
fall short before harvest? And then again, the lowering of the price
will have made it no longer worth while to till much that is tilled now,
and there will be still less produced next year.”
“In order to keep up the same extent of tillage,” said Angus, “how high
must the price rise again?”
“To what it is now, to be sure,” replied Ronald. “I see what you
mean:—that we must come round to rent-price again, even if the landlords
did not take rent. So, Mr. Callum, I beg your pardon for being angry
about Ella’s field; and I will say no more against rent being paid for
it, or for my line of shore, or for whatever will bear proper rent.”
“Your sister has made you a sensible lad,” was Mr. Callum’s reply, “and
that is more than I can say for most lads I meet in the islands. They
grumble at me, and tell all strangers about the hardship of paying high
rents, and the shame that rich men should empty the pockets of the
poor.”
“And what do strangers say?” inquired Ella.
“They look with contempt upon the tumble-down dirty huts in which the
people live, and ask what rent; and when they hear, they hold up their
hands and cry out upon the laird.”
“Not distinguishing, I suppose, between the real and nominal rent.”
“Just so. They do not inquire how much is for the fishery, and how much
for the land, and how much for the kelping-shore, and how very little
for the house; but they run away with the idea that the total rent is
for the roof and four walls, and tell their friends at home how hard the
Highland proprietors are upon their tenantry.”
“But is it not possible to make the people understand the true state of
the case?”
Callum said he had never tried, for they were a stupid, unmanageable set
that he had under him, and only fit to do the laird’s pleasure whatever
it might be. He began, however, to think that it would make matters very
easy to have the tenantry enlightened upon the subject of rent: and when
an amicable agreement was presently concluded about the lease, and the
blanks filled up without dispute, he said to himself that it was
pleasant to have to do with reasonable people where business was in
question, while their independence on other occasions was not perhaps
more troublesome than the ill behaviour of the ignorant.
Ella, being quite of this opinion, was anxious to know something of the
character of their new neighbours at the farm. As Mr. Callum said little
about them, and she did not choose to inquire, she must leave it to time
to satisfy her curiosity; but she augured well from Mr. Callum’s
expectation that they would find their rent no hardship, though it was
considerably higher than Murdoch had lately paid. The furniture, too, of
which she obtained a sight as it was being carried up, was of a superior
kind to what was often seen in Garveloch, and nearly equal to her own;
so that there was hope that the family were sober and industrious at any
rate, and that other virtues would show themselves as opportunity
offered.
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