Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/624

 02 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL riches, since they determine an incessant gravitation of prices towards the minimum cost of production. It is thus by an economical gravitation that the state of equilibrium is reached between con- sumption, production, and the retribution of the productive agencies. The chapter entitled ' Le Capital immobilier La prodwtion de /'homme,' contains a brilliant reffftation of Mr. Henry George's well- known stateanent about the illegitimacy of private ownership of land. M. de Molinari sta. rts with the reflexion that, in regard to the c. lai.ms of mankind, there is no distinction to be drawn between appropraataon by individuals and appropriation by a nation. In the name of what right, for instance, are Laplanders and Greenlanders excluded from sharing in the Government of Washington ? Both have an equal right to what nature, according to Mr. Henry George, supplies with such impartiality. There is, in fact, no difference between the value of a house and that of the land on which it is built: both have their origin in the labour and savings of man. In Europe, after so many centuries of occupation, we cannot trace the origin of the property of land, but we are able to do so in America, and if the expenses of the conquest, of the occupation, and of the administration of land are taken into account, we shall find that its actual value is rather below than above its cost. No such thing as ' the unearned increment' exists; owing only to the fact that land is everlasting, and that it is not movable, these physical conditions generate in some cases an increment of value, and in other cases a decrement, both quite natural, and due in no way to artificial causes. In Europe, landowners are suffering just now under the influence of the latter, and the same thing will occur in the United States, when their land will have to compete against the still almost virgin soil of South America, Australia, and Africa. In the second part, entitled ' Progress and its Impediments' (Progrts et Obstacles), the author proceeds to explain how at all times, since the origin of mankind, these natural laws have promoted human pro- gress, how the impediments due sometimes to the influence of man and to external circumstances have gradually been removed by the progress first of destructive industry (war and the material of war securing the preponderance of civilized over uncivilized races), and later on by that of productive industry, and principally of the means of communication, which have extended the field of competition and faycured the mobili- zation of produce, capital, and labour. The actual state of struggle between capital and labour is caused, according to M. de Molinari, by the want of mobility of labour, and the want of an independent and connecting link between the employer, or e, trepreneur, and the work- men, which should act in the same way as the corn-dealer between the man who grows corn and the man who buys bread. In the opinion of M. de l[olinari, Trade Unions cannot fill up the existing gap, although they have been useful, and have enabled labour to obtain a firmer standing gro. und, but they are inefficient whenever a local over-supply of hands exmts. Trade Unions cannot usefully combine the parts of