the use of natural materials; that, consequently, any one has a right to the use of such natural opportunities as may not be wanted by any one else; and that the result of his labor, so expended, does of right become his individual property against all the world. For, where one man wants to use a natural opportunity that no one else wants to use, he has a right to do so, which springs from and is attested by the fact of his existence. This is an absolute, unlimited right, so long and in so far as no one else wants to use the same natural opportunity. Then, but not till then, it becomes limited by the similar rights of others. Thus no question of the right of any one to use any natural opportunity can arise until more than one man wants to use the same natural opportunity. It is only then that any question of this right, any need for the action of society in the adjustment of equal rights to land, can come up.

Thus, instead of there being no right of property until society has so far developed that all land has been properly appraised and rented for terms of years, an absolute right of property in the things produced by labor exists from the beginning-is coeval with the existence of

man.

In the right of each man to himself, and his right to use the world, lies the sure basis of the right of property. This Locke saw-just as the first man must have seen it. But Mr. Spencer, confused by a careless substitution of terms, has lost his grasp on the right of property and has never since recovered it.

Getting rid of the idea of joint rights we see that the task of securing, in an advanced and complex civilization, the equal rights of all to the use of land is much simpler and easier than Mr. Spencer and the land nationalizationists suppose; that it is not necessary for society to take land and rent it out. For so long as only one man

wants to use a natural opportunity it has no value; but as soon as two or more want to use the same natural opportunity, a value arises. Hence, any question as to the adjustment of equal rights to the use of land occurs only as to valuable land; that is to say, land that has a value irrespective of the value of any improvements in or on it. As to land that has no value, or, to use the economic phrase, bears no rent, whoever may choose to use it has not only an equitable title to all that his labor may produce from it, but society cannot justly call on him for any payment for the use of it. As to land that has a value, or, to use the economic phrase in the economic meaning, bears rent, the principle of equal freedom requires only that this value, or economic rent, be turned over to the community. Hence the formal appropriation and renting out of land by the community is not necessary: it is only necessary that the holder of valuable land should pay to the community an equivalent of the ground value, or economic rent; and this can be assured by the simple means of collecting an assessment in the form of a tax on the value of land, irrespective of improvements in or on it.

In this way all members of the community are placed on equal terms with regard to natural opportunities that offer greater advantages than those any one member of the community is free to use, and are consequen ly sought by more than one of those having equal rights to use the land. And, since the value of land arises from competition and is constantly fixed by competition, the question of who shall use this superior land desired by more than one is virtually decided by competition, which settles clashing individual desires by determining at once both who shall be accorded the use of the superior land, and who will make the most productive use of it. In this way all, including the user of the superior natural

opportunity, obtain their equal shares of the superiority, by the taking of its value for their common uses; while all the difficulties of state rental of land and of determining and settling for the value of improvements are avoided. This is the single-tax system.

CHAPTER V.

MR. SPENCER'S CONFUSION AS TO VALUE.

T seems strange that a man who has touched on so

many branches of knowledge, and written so largely on sociology, should even to this time have neglected the primary principles of political economy. But the failure to distinguish between equal rights and joint rights, which has so confused Mr. Spencer, is allied with a failure to comprehend the nature of rent. In "Social Statics" he assumes that all land ought to pay rent to the state, and on this assumption, joined with and perhaps giving rise to his transmutation of equal rights into joint rights, he bases important conclusions as to the right of property. In his latest book, "Justice," he is not only no clearer in this but shows plainly-what in "Social Statics" is only to be surmised-his failure to appreciate the nature of the fundamental economic concept-value.

Thus, in the chapter in "Justice" entitled "The Right of Property," he speaks (Section 55) of weapons, instruments, dress and decorations as "things in which the value given by labor bears a specially large relation to the value of the raw material," and thus continues:

When with such articles we join huts, which, however, being commonly made by the help of fellow-men who receive reciprocal aid, are thus less distinctly products of an individual's labor, we

have named about all the things in which, at first, the worth given by effort is great in comparison with the inherent worth; for the inherent worth of the wild food gathered or caught is more obvious than the worth of the effort spent in obtaining it. And this is doubtless the reason why, in the rudest societies, the right of property is more definite in respect of personal belongings than in respect of other things.

Passing the queer notion that things made by two or more men are less distinctly products of an individual's labor than things made by one man, we have here the idea that there is an inherent value in the materials and spontaneous products of nature-i.e., land in the economic category-a value underived from labor and independent of it. The slightest acquaintance with economic literature, the slightest attempt to analyze the meaning of the term, would have shown Mr. Spencer the preposterousness of this idea.

The word "value" in English speech has two meanings. One is that of usefulness or utility, as when we speak of the value of the ocean to man, the value of fresh air, the value of the compass in navigation, the value of the stethoscope in the diagnosis of disease, the value of the antiseptic treatment in surgery; or, when having in mind the intrinsic merits of the mental production itself, its quality of usefulness to the reader or to the public, we speak of the value of a book. In this sense of utility there is inherent worth or intrinsic value -a quality or qualities belonging to the thing itself, which give it usefulness to man.

The other sense of the word "value"-the sense in which Mr. Spencer uses it when he says that the value given by labor bears a specially large ratio to the value. of the raw materials, or when, later on, he substitutes the word "worth" as synonymous in such use for "value"—is that of exchangeability. In this sense value