pay for the use of land when there was an abundant quantity not yet appropriated?" Who would pay ten, or twenty, dollars for land in Illinois or Alabama, when thousands of acres could be had in Texas without cost? It would appear extraordinary that men should pay fifty or a hundred dollars for that near New York or Philadelphia-for little more than a bed of sand in New Jersey-when they could have the most fertile land elsewhere without charge; yet it is done hourly, and by those who have sufficient common sense to manage their affairs. They do it on the same principle that they pay for water, ice, and coal. It is cheaper for them to pay for the use of capital employed in bringing water and coal to them, than to go and seek them where they may be had gratis. So they deem it more advantageous to pay the owner of land near to a great city, for the use of capital invested for its benefit, and thus have a market near the place of production, than to remove to places more remote, where, from the want of previously invested capital, in the form of roads, towns, or manufactories, a large portion of the product will be swallowed up in transportation.

CHAPTER VIII.

OBJECTIONS.

We propose to notice here some of the objections that may perhaps be made to the views which we have submitted for the consideration of the reader.

The natives of Ireland seek the shores of the United States in quest of wages, at the same moment that the people of the latter leave the Atlantic States to seek in the west for other lands, and those of Virginia and North Carolina migrate with their slaves to the fertile soils of Alabama and Mississippi. It may be asked, why should these migrations take place, if there be no value in land? Why should the people of Massachusetts go to Illinois-or those of Maryland seek the borders of the Gulf of Mexico? They have land at home, and unless there were some intrinsic value in that they seek, would they not remain there? The Irishman seeks in the United States the high wages that arise out of the rapid growth of capital, consequent upon the perfect security and freedom that are enjoyed. If he wish to go upon a farm, he can obtain high wages as a labourer, or if he desire to rent one, he can have it by paying the owner a small proportion of the product, as interest upon the capital that has been expended in its improvement. He finds all the aids to labour that are necessary to enable him to obtain large wages. It is not improbable that his predecessor on the same farm may be at the same moment on his way to Illinois, to seek there for a more favourable location than that which he had left. He possesses a degree of enterprise that is not participated in by all. Many, indeed most, of his neighbours prefer remaining at home to cultivate the acres they inherited, thus diminishing the competition with those who are willing to remove. He knows that lands in the west sell daily at prices that are very low, when compared with the immense advantages they possess, arising out of the vast amount of capital expended upon and near them, and in the formation of roads

and canals leading to them. He knows that such expenditures must continue, and that they must increase with immense rapidity, and that every dollar so expended must tend to increase the value of any property he may acquire. He must, however, submit to many privations, the compensation for which is to be found in the probable growth of the value of his property. The return is large, and it is so for the same reason that the merchant who engages in a trade attended with unusual risks, is enabled to claim a larger proportion of the proceeds of the voyage, than his neighbour who trades with a neighbouring port can do.

The people of the slave States generally change their places on the same principle that, in former times, stage owners changed their horses. It was deemed most profitable to get as much as possible out of them in the shortest time, and then replace them with new ones. Such has been the system of cultivation pursued in those states. The lands have been worked hard, while nothing has been returned, and they are generally worn out. In this state of things, the opening of a new country, well adapted for the cultivation of those products in which slave labour is usually employed, holds out to them the prospect of making wages, which can no longer be obtained from their old and impoverished lands. They transfer themselves as speedily as possible to the new country. Towns arise, and capital is invested in the making of roads-in the building of steamboatsin the construction of rail roads, and in all other ways tending to render valuable the labour employed. Had a different system of cultivation been pursued, by which the lands of Virginia, and of North and South Carolina, would have been kept in order by manure-had the owners not consumed so large a portion of their products-had their capital increased, and had it been applied to the formation of roads and canals, they might now have a high exchangeable value, perhaps much higher than the new lands to which their owners remove; instead of which, there have been numerous cases in which they have abandoned their plantations, to be occupied by the next comer, for the purpose of transferring themselves to Alabama, or Mississippi.

A person who sees before him two fields, possessing equal

"advantages of situation,"-one of which yields a large rent, while the other is lying waste,—can with difficulty satisfy himself that the value of the first is not due to its superiority of soil. He asks, "If difference of fertility be not the cause of the difference of value, why is not one as valuable as the other." We do not contend that equal quantities of labour will give equal value to all land, but only that all which exists is due to the labour applied to its improvement. When the first was taken into cultivation, it was waste, and of no value. Labour has rendered it valuable. The field that is waste may not be susceptible of yielding, at any time, such return as will induce its appropriation, or cultivation, but it may lie waste only because its qualities are different, and require a larger application of capital. It may be a bed of clay, excellent for making bricks, but bad for cultivation; or it may be a mass of granite, well adapted for building, but which would yield nothing to the agriculturist; or it may be a great coal deposite, admirably adapted for fuel, but unlikely to produce wheat or rye; or it may be iron or copper ore. Under present circumstances, the man who would attempt to make bricks, or to get out the granite, or the coal, or the ore, would be ruined, because the cost of transportation would absorb the whole, and he could not make wages; or perhaps he could make wages, only on being allowed to work the land rent free. A further amount of capital applied to the improvement of the roads, will perhaps enable it to yield a small rent, because the market for its products will be somewhat extended. A few years afterwards a canal, or a rail road, may be made to this land, and the inferior property, the bed of granite, or of coal, that had been totally unproductive, may become worth, perhaps, twenty or fifty times as much as the superior land immediately adjoining it, paying a large rent for the use of the interest it has acquired in that canal or rail road, and in the other improvements accumulated for centuries that it has been unproductive, and not for the powers of the soil, because they can be then no greater than they were fifty years before. We have daily evidence that such is the result of the application of capital. Beds of limestone, that a few years since were comparatively valueless, now yield large revenues. In other places are masses of gra

nite that were unlikely ever to come into use, and of which one hundred acres would have been given for a single acre of land susceptible of cultivation; whereas, a single acre now yields more than one hundred acres of land in its vicinity, of the highest degree of fertility. Thus the different soils change places, and that which was superior becomes inferior, while that which was entirely worthless takes its place at the head of the most productive.

It may be said that labour is not invariably a cause of value. It is, however, never applied except with the view to give it, as no man will work unless he believes that he shall obtain a reward for so doing, which he cannot do unless his labour be productive of some valuable result.

That it is sometimes greatly misdirected, there can be no doubt, as, for instance, in the case of the large armies of Europe. So far as they are not required for the security of person and property, their labour is entirely lost to the community, and no value is produced. It is sometimes applied without judgment, as in many cases in which, for want of geological knowledge, large sums have been expended in scarching for mines in places where they could not exist. Sometimes, when directed by the best judgment, it fails of producing any valuable result. In other cases there are values that appear not to be caused by labour. Thus a man purchases a farm, upon which he unexpectedly discovers a copper, or a gold, or a lead mine. He had paid what was supposed to be its value when he purchased it as a farm, but that is now, perhaps, quadrupled or quintupled. Another sinks a shaft and strikes a vein of coal at a place where it was scarcely supposed to exist, and his fortune is made. A peculiar flavour in the wine of Johannisberg, or that of Chateau Margaux, or Constantia, gives high value to it, and consequently secures a large income to the proprietor. If we were to trace the value of Chateau Margaux, we should, perhaps, find that it has steadily continued to increase with the growth of capital and application of labour. We should certainly find that its present value was not equal to that of the labour that had been expended for its advantage. The unexpected discovery of a vein of coal would give no value to land unless possessing advantages of situation-i. e. unless capital had been expended