8 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. II. 



hence their value is transient. Land value never disappears, but remains 

 as long as population lasts. Hence the value of commodities demands 

 the continuous exertion of toil every year to maintain it, while land value 

 remains without any toil. The use of machinery, by economizing labour, 

 can reduce the value of certain commodities ; but no machinery has ever 

 been devised, or will be devised, to extinguish land values. Increased 

 population also reduces the value of certain commodities, but it has the 

 opposite effect with land values. Increased population leads to increased 

 production, and consequent intensified competition between sellers ; but 

 on the other hand it causes more demand for land, and hence lessened 

 competition between sellers. A large portion of commodities, moreover, 

 are such that they must be sold in season — bonnets and spring bonnets — 

 hence holding for a rise is impossible; but land never rots, wears out, or 

 goes out of fashion. These characteristics are so distinct that what is de- 

 clared affirmatively of one must be declared negatively of the other; what- 

 ever character we find in one we find the opposite in the other. They are 

 as diffierent as plus and minus, or asset and liability. And yet in our 

 legislation, whether for assessment, assigning the rights of property, or 

 distributing wealth, we treat these two opposite things as though they 

 were one and the same — a fatal mistake, leading to monstrous divergen- 

 cies in society. By this mistake we allow one part of society to secure 

 large service from the rest of societ}', simply because land becomes more 

 scarce, and thus every increase of societ}' makes a widening of the gulf in 

 society, carrying the landowner to greater fortune, and the industrious 

 classes togreater misfortune. All these opposite characteristics between 

 the two values show that the one only, namely, that of commodities, 

 should be held as property by individuals, the other should belong to the 

 State. 



Mr. Harvey had listened to the paper with mingled sensations of 

 pleasure and of pain. Of pleasure, because the author, like others who 

 had adopted these new social doctrines, spoke with an air of conviction, 

 as if he believed what he was saying, also with that charming air of 

 resignation and pity which pleasantly distinguished the elect, the illumi- 

 nati, of many harmless kinds, and with a grace of diction which might 

 well awake envy in less gifted men. Of pain, akin to that which a cat 

 might feel when its owner, in a fit of abstraction, was stroking its fur the 

 wrong way. Every proposition laid down seemed thoroughly antagon- 

 istic to what he (Mr. Harvey) had been taught in his youth to believe, 

 and every argument made use of seemed to be based on fallacies. He 

 felt that the author of the paper was dealing out delusive sophistries, and 

 propounding theories, every one of which needed but the touch of 

 experience to burst them. Let him give one instance. He was the 



