THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 65 



a year. He was indignant ; he fully expected the offer would be 

 $12,000, for a lot of land 60x90 feet. What action of its owner 

 created that enormous increase of value, from $20 to over $200,000 ? 

 None. No man can create or increase the value of the land he 

 occupies. It was the existence of population near that lot ; it was 

 their increase in numbers, in enterprise, that wrought the mighty 

 change. Land values appear with people and disappear with their 

 departure. Lots in Port Moody were once at boom prices ; when I 

 passed through it 8 years ago, no merchant would take a store in it 

 rent free. Population had been driven away by the extension of the 

 C. P. R. to the site of the present City of Vancouver. 



After the Simpson fire in Toronto the Ontario Government 

 withdrew the Jamieson lot from sale because $5000 ground rent 

 could not be realized. One man was ready to pay $4,200 per annum 

 for it, a lot about 40x80, and there was no semblance of improve- 

 ment on it ; the debris of the fire was an expense, for it had to be 

 removed, but hundreds of thousands of people pass that corner every 

 year. 



Now in this genesis of land value we have two things of moment 

 to us as patriots. 



I St. The value of land being created, that is, produced by the 

 people, society, by virtue of its assumed protection of the rights of 

 property, must demand that value shall be kept for the enjoyment of 

 its producers — the people. If society says to the individual, " You 

 shall use and enjoy what you produce," it must also say to the people 

 as a whole "you also shall enjoy that which you have produced." 



2nd. The second thing we find with this discovery of the gen- 

 esis of land value is a sure and certain mode by which the indus- 

 triously disposed shall have free opportunity to exert their product- 

 ive powers. 



If each man monopolizing valuable land, yearly gives to society 

 that value of his land which is created and maintained by the pres- 

 ence of people, he enjoys no better opportunity than does the man 

 who is monopolizing land that has no value, for this man has nothing 

 to pay, and the other yields up all the advantage of his superior 

 location. Both are on the same footing therefore, so far as oppor- 

 tunity to produce is concerned. 



But we have discovered more. 



