The Private Ownership of Land [pp. 125-147]

THE P.RVA TE 0 WNERSHIP OF LAND.
tory have lands been subdued under so favorable circumstances.
The process has been assisted by many of the recent improvements in instruments and in the means of easyand cheap transportation. Who can at the present day form much idea of the
cost of subduing the lands of our whole Atlantic slope? Most
of those lands will never repay in rents the' outlays which have
been made upon them during the progress of the present century. We have founded our argument upon a portion of the
landed property of the world which is more favorable to the
landed proprietor than almost any other portion of the earth
which could have been selected. Is not the conclusion then
justified, that the definition of rent on which Ricardo's theory
is founded and depends for its validity is erroneous? Rent is
a factor in all agricultural transactions, from the very beginning
of cultivation. No consideration is paid for the use of land
over and above the interest of the capital invested in its improvement. We are on perfectly solid ground in maintaining,
that as ownership is originally acquired by labor expended in
preparing it for cultivation, so its value at any future time
cannot exceed, either for sale or rent, the cost of its improvement. If this is so, Ricardo's theory of rent must be given
up as having no foundation in the real nature of landed property, and as utterly delusive in its logical tendency.
This conclusion, so far from being an anomaly in economic
science, conducts us to one of its grandest generalizations. In
the beginning of this essay it was shown that there is but one
way in which an individual can obtain the exclusive ownership
of any material substance, and that in that general law land is
embraced. At the point which we have now reached, we are
prepared to enunciate the general proposition, that everything
which is either bought or sold owes its exchangeable value to
the labor which it costs to bring it to the condition in which it
is offered for sale. Particular exceptions will occur in which it
will be possible to procure for something offered for sale more
than the labor which it has cost. A nugget of gold of great
value may be found lying on the surface, and it may cost the
finder nothing but to pick it up and transport it to a market.
A particular mine may yield extraordinary returns for the labor
expended in working it. A piece of land may be found which
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