93 



the most active competition, this species of sale is 

 precisely that in which there is the greatest possible 

 risk of loss ; and to fix a limit, or upset price as it 

 is called, to any purpose, it is an essential that the 

 value of the thing- to be sold be ascertained, which 

 in regard to this land, has been determined to be, at 

 present, impossible. Gladly would I get out of this 

 difficulty, but truly I do not see the way. 



I am fully aware of the differences of opinion 

 regarding- the relative values of land and capital in 

 wastes reclaimed, and that some economists have 

 g-one so far as to assert that the whole is capital, 

 and that waste land, therefore, has no value.* But 

 we have only to consider the length of time over 

 which this outlay is spread, and to place against it 

 the accumulated wealth of the produce of the land, 

 and the fallacy is transparent. When rich deposits 

 are taken from the bottom of the Sea, or other place 

 where they are not now utilized, and laid on barren 

 rocks, that land may be called capital ; but if so, it 

 is capital not invested in, but capital converted into 

 land, and its value is determined, not by the cost of 

 its formation ; but by its fertility and advantages in 

 relation to other lands in the neighbourhood. The 



* Mr. Carey, an American Economist, in his " Principles of C 

 Political Economy," asserts that all the land in any country is [ ) 

 not equal in value to anything like the capital that has been 

 laid out on it ; or, in other words, that to bring the land of auy 

 country to its present condition, from a state of primeval 

 forest, would not pay. He concludes from this that ail rent is 

 the result of capital expended, which theory, if true, would 

 vitiate the principles of a tax on land. 



