Land

Abstract

The classical economists were concerned about rising population and rising rents and about the fact that ‘as bread grew dearer, cultivation was creeping up the hillsides’.¹ Alfred Marshall shared their concern: ‘The growth of population, if not checked by other causes, must ultimately be checked by the difficulty of obtaining raw produce.’² It is with that difficulty that we are concerned in this chapter — which is, therefore, yet another demonstration of Marshall’s debt to his English forebears and yet another illustration of continuity in economic thinking.