The daily morning oasis., 1919-10-07
RENTS VS. WAGES.

~ ECENTLY in an editorial "The Oasis quoted
~ the theory of Adam Smith with regard the econ
4 omc fund produced in given country each
year, and his analysis thereof into three elements
VIZ: Rent, profit and wages. Professor Smith
made the point which to work out always that
after all the lands have been appropriated rent grail
ually increases and trenches upon the portions of
wages and profit His proof the fact that there
is continual tendency on the part of the FIRST to
pand land the other two to diminish. Interest falls
surties and that IS part of profit.
In this country the tendency of rent to rise is
il the very increase IN cost of land. 1t is OBJ
servable in every state, and in evecy growing town
Lands that could have been bought twenty years
go for five dollars an and even less going
now at $1OO to$250 per acre-even for more
Acreage properties adjecent to towns and held at
S100 per acre or thereabout have become town lots
held at thousands of dollars per lot and sometimes
per front foot. In 1869 the writer offered 16O
acres of land outside of Denver for $40 per acre.
The land is now Capitol Hill worth many million
of dollars; and good arabic lands in the Platte Val
ey and other Colorado Valleys that could have been
bought with title then at $5 per acre, with hundreds
of thousand open to homesteading sell for
S1O0 per acre and above When "The Oasis" came
to Nogales lots on Morley Avenue that going
begging at 81 600 cannot be touched now at SlOOOO
while the improvements upon them, placed there OF
late, have cost as many thousand more Conditions
described in the foregoing senten cevsxathee Ost ers
years ago increased DoI: into improved fil1ns I'M
proved town lots, and city property valued in many
billions of dollars have become permanent invest
ments, that by an immutable law of economic char
acter must pay fair returns upon the valuation plac
ed upon individual parcels. That return is what
Adam Smith classified rent 1t is true that prod
uctive capacity of all lands in the country have in
creased above their standards of fifty years ago;
but that has been capitalized and returns eXacted;
and that has put the landholder that case where
ho onH yoofo n110h loyon CborQ IF thn
total economic fund that is parcelled each year to
rent wages and profit (ncluding interest in the
third item) AS asserted in preceding article in
"The Oasis" where the land occupied and used in an
enterprise is owned by the same owner as the enter
prise, share of what are termed his profits each
year, is chargeabe properly to rent. Many enter
prises do that very thing "The Oasis can enumer-
ate commercial enterprises right in Nogales, owning
the building wherein they operate that charge their
own business rent for their buildings land as the
years passed that rent charged has been raised as
rents of other properties upon the street have
been raised. The owner of the business charged
himself just as much for rent as he could have got
were the premises rented to another That is ample
corroboration of Adam Smiths classification, and
his assertion that rent is of the three elements
into whichinto which the annual economic fund of
urally divides itself.
AS Smith demonstrated rent encrOacheS upon
profit and wages; and that has been the rule in all
other civilizations before this and in all countr-
les. Competition between dealers would make
them stand encroachmentS of rent ,and competition
between wOrkmen made them submit in part to eX-
actions of their employers who sought to recoup the
rent exaction. There was rebellion, of course, and
disorder; but in the end rent the master; and
the two other elements gave way.
In the United States in Great Britain and her
colonies with other European nations labor has
bined to resist being made to stand the encroacn-
Of itc ahOru