BY E. M. JOHNSTON, F.L.S. I7l 



It is fairly consistent, therefore, to contend that so long as 

 uneai'ned. increment does not exceed in amount the limits of a 

 possible downward depression in exchange value (i.e., risk of 

 loss), it would be unjust to deprive them of the benefit of com- 

 pensation in an upward direction (i.e., chance of profit), and 

 thus improvement in value, however caused, cannot rightly be 

 claimed by the community as an unearned increment until its 

 amount, as a whole, exceeds the original cost of services in 

 converting the original land to the condition necessary to the 

 uses to which it may now be devoted. 



Monopoly of the Gifts of Nattjee. 



But, say others, have you forgotten the free gifts of 

 Nature — the oxygen, carbon, rain, and the forces of life — called 

 into play by man's industry, increasing his oi'iginal stores 

 every year forty, fifty, and a hundredfold ; these forces 

 silently working, whether the proprietor sleeps or wakes, are 

 surely embraced in the products reaped. Most certainly. 

 Man's labour would be of no avail without these natural 

 forces. But who reaps the benefit of these general gratuitous 

 services ? Most clearly it is the consumer. The free lorces 

 of Nature common to all lands are not produced at the 

 expense or by the labour of the producer, and it would scarcely 

 ever occur to him to introduce it as a possible ingredient in 

 the selling value. It no more can enter into the selling value 

 of common terrestrial products than can the value of the free 

 winds of heaven enter into the merchantman's freight charges. 

 In truth, the selling price of products — such as wheat, for 

 example — is not now determined by the producers of any one 

 country ; nor by the immediate actual cost of production 

 defrayed by any particular producer ; nor by the greater or 

 smaller natural fertility of the soil of any one place or 

 country. 



It is not now farm against farm, but terrestrial region 

 against terrestrial region, in which natural agents, such as 

 climate and largeness of cultivable area play a greater part 

 than human skill or even richness of soil. 



The aggregate quantity produced in relation to present demand 

 is the only deterinining oneasure of selling price. When supply 

 is much above demand the producer must often sell under 

 cost price. When supply falls short of demand the profit is 

 still measured in the same manner without reference to 

 immediate cost of production. Competition forces all pro- 

 ducers to give the consumer the benefit of all gratuitous 

 aids — whether natural or artificial — that are free to all other 

 producers, and the only effect of actual cost of production is 

 that it determines the extent and quality of the lands which 

 are best capable of promising success in the competition for 



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