The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-11-07
The Globes Home Study Course
The Rise and Growth Of h)ealh.
BY E. BENZ. ANDREWS. IL. D.

and city bonds, too. must be excluded.
They are signs of debt, and
dept Is not wealth The same
IS true Of \ property like patent
rights and copyrights, and of promissory
notes and bank notes SO far as they are
based on hard money. Notice, by the
way, that any of these titles may help
10 make UP an individuals wealth:
whence We see from anot her point of view
how erroneous It would be to state the
nations wealth as simply the sum of the
fortunes OF individuals and corporations,
plus the public property of the nation.
On the other hand. titles held by people
domiciled in one land to values in anothe,
are, If good. pieces of the first lands
wealth. If. however, we are seeking to
make out the whole worlds wealth all
titles OF this sort must be kept out OF
reckoning.
Where now shall we claim land-as
wealth simply or as a basis for or condi-
ton to wealth? The answer turns ON
the sense in which the inquiry Is meant
1t may relate to improvements upon land.
as trees, hedges. bitches, and fertilizers.
or to the original non-artificial qualities
of land belonging to it by nature and
not conferred by labor, or to the value
which comes to land simply from its
location in reference to human DWELLINGS,
and activities. Improvements upon land
come clearly within our definition of
wealth. They are man-created utilities
Just as clearly the natural qualities OF
land are excluded from the definition
and to be relegated to the same class Of
Things as air, sunshine and the ocean
The fact that these qualities are appro-
prfated, made subjects of exchange and
price, does not alter the case Could
greedy men fly; had they in any way the
restless power. they would probably ap-
propriate air and sunlight, just as land
is appropriated now, but that would not
turn air or sunlight into articles of
wealth. 1t would leave them, as now,
simply conditions Of wealth. factors help
full to the creation of wealth. but as exist
ing independently of human effort and
not items of wealth itself
The case of what Henry George calls
the unearned increment of land. where
mere place has become valuable through
the growth of a city, SO that to pur-
chase land one must cover it, say, with
$40 notes, is a triie more complex In
, London land has often been sold for over
S240 foot. and 800 is by no means a re-
markable price. Select spots of London
land are even said to be worth as much
as 1t would cost to pave them with Eng
lish sovereigns laid upon edge. Nor let
us think that this enormity of land value
is an affair OF the Old World alone. The
Dutch bought of the Indians all Manhat-
tan island for $24 On some fronts in the
city now. occupying that island $24 would
today not bring you single foot. When,
after the Civil war, Birmingham, Ala,
was laid out by land company, GER
tain clergyman was urged to take S1.D08
worth of the shares at par. His cautious
wife dissuaded him. A lawyer bought
them few days later, having to pay ST.
100. For one year at least since then the
dividend on those shares has reached $24,-
900.
The utility in these cases is certainly
created by human act. Men came; the
localities grew: business conferred at this
or that special point, and therefore land
waxed dear. But it viii be seen that this
DEAFNESS, springfng though it does in
way from human deed. is not the product
of conscious human effort, as such, like
houses. food and clothing. Strictly it is
nonartifcial, after all, since, in bringing
it to be- men were Instruments, not
agents. I therefore class all that value OF
land which arises from its location in
reference to the dwellings and activities
of men no less than IL it were fertility,
richness in ores or any other purely nat