64 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



freely exert his productive powers, and to save him from the exactions 

 of those who would fain despoil him. The command to labor 

 implies the duty of providing the opportunity. The prohibition to 

 beg or steal lies equally on all ; the opportunity to work appertains 

 equally to all. 



What are equal opportunities to produce ? 



Does it mean that society shall sub-divide its territory so as to 

 give to each an equal opportunity ? This was done in Israel under 

 Joshua ; and where production is in its simpler forms, where each 

 family is its own farmer, miller, baker, tailor and shoemaker, such a 

 method is infinitely superior to the plan followed by Britain in Amer- 

 ica, where it created and maintained such wealth-exacting institutions 

 as the Canada Company, the Hudson Bay Company, etc. 



But now that sub-division of labor is intensified, such a simple 

 mode of dealing with land is no longer effective. While retaining 

 the principle acted on by Joshua, we must adapt it to our more 

 highly differentiated industrial condition. 



Does it mean nationalization of the lands, society assuming 

 ownership, becoming in its units landlord as well as tenant and there- 

 fore dispossessing or buying out the present owners, and letting out 

 their lands in lots to suit tenants ? It need not ; equal rights to the 

 use of the earth may be created and maintained without any such 

 social upheaval, without any such perpetuating of the burdens now 

 borne by the producer. 



We are familiar with the phrase "land values," or the value of 

 land ; have we taken the pains to think out the genesis and the 

 nature of such values ? 



Land varies in usefulness — in fertility or position — but so long 

 as a country is uninhabited, its land has no value, for value is the 

 relation one thing bears to another in exchange, and no man will 

 give anything in exchange for the privilege of using land in uninhab- 

 ited territory ; he can get the use of it for nothing. 



Dineen's corner, at the junction of King and Yonge Streets, 

 Toronto, was purchased for a few dollars about 70 years ago. What 

 is its value to-day apart from the improvements ? 



It was leased for years for $6,000 per annum (ground only). 

 That lease recently expired. The lessee, after careful calculation, 

 wrote the owner (a resident of London, England), an offer of $9,000 



