10 THE SUN. 



hsLck fa?' enough, he would come to the savage instinct. If a 

 title, originally wrong, can be improved by years, how many 

 earswill it take to make it perfect? How many more to make 

 it more than perfect? 



On the contrary, legality and age, as titles to property, have 

 been constantly undergoing modification. What was the 

 decline of Feudalism, the Corn Law agitation, the slave Enian. 

 cipatiou, but a destruction of legality and age, because incom- 

 patible with the equal freedom of all. Even labor's claim to 

 property would fail, were it not that the right to exist is the 

 most fundamental of all rights and depends upon reaping the 

 results of of one's labor. Moreover, the product of our labor 

 is mixed with the product of nature and there are many things 

 indispensable to possess, such as air, light, land and water, 

 which are wholly disconnected from any labor. How is the 

 tenure of these to be determined, except upon the basis of the 

 equal liberty of all? Liberty, therefore, is the final test. 



BASIS OF PRICE. 



"Labor was the first price paid for anything. The product 

 of labor constitutes the natural recompense, or wages of labor," 

 said Adam Smith. Xow the question arises, is labor to be the 

 secoiul price, or does something else intervene? Is skill a factor 

 of price? Then how? The product of skilled labor is greater 

 than unskilled, for which reason, the services of such will be 

 in greater demand, and being scarcer, will bring a higher price. 

 But is this to be termed payment for skill? not at all, for, 

 while the reward of 2>ersonal services cannot be separated from 

 their natural product, the terms of the price are always reck- 

 oned from a labor standpoint. The buyer thinks only of the 

 valu(! hv. is receiving, measured by the cost of reproduction. 



S/>-i/f 7JS. Labor. — Suppose an inventor's machine will do the 

 work of a thousand men, then on the ground of skill, that 

 "a thing is wortli wliat it will fetch," it should command the 

 services of a thousand lives! But suppose ihe first inventor 

 is supplanted by anotlier, or the consumers go to manufac- 

 turing their own in.ichinos, hoAv then could skill get rewarded? 

 Oh, it has j>atentc<l a jtriiiciplu of nature, and there cannot be 

 but o;i€ monopoly of a principle of nature! Either the first, 



