19
bushels of corn in 1910 unless a greater amount of labor is expended, for while land values have steadily gone up, the productivity of the soil has gone down. As long as this farmer works his own land it is immaterial to him whether the land is worth ten cents or ten thousand dollars.
Yes, you see that; but you say: "This farmer bought his farm for $100.00 in 1880; to-day he can sell it for $10,000.00 and make a clear profit of $9,900.00." Admitted; but somebody must have $10,000.00 before our farmer can get it. Let us say our farmer's name is Tom and the other fellow's name is Dick.
Now the two swap, and let's see what happened.
Nothing happened; not a cent of value was created. Instead of Dick eating up his $10,000.00 in town, Tom is moving to town to do the spending and Dick moves on the farm. The two change positions—that is all. If this changing of land and money has benefited Tom and Dick, then figure it out for me; and if the swapping between Tom and Dick did not make the two any richer than they were before the swap, how on earth is the swapping of all the Toms and Dicks in the country going to benefit the farming class?
If I own a dollar and you own a pup, and I give you a dollar for your pup, how many more dollars and how many more pups have we now? And if we haven't got any more pups and dollars, how much better off are we?
But let us say I am a land speculator and you are a farmer. In 1880 I bought the above-mentioned piece of dirt for $100.00. The rent has paid all the taxes and 8 per cent on the money invested. For thirty years I have busied myself sitting in the shade waiting for a sucker, "Then you come along. Want a farm to raise corn, don't you? and you have $10,000.00, which means that I get $9,900 for waiting for you; and you raised 18,800 bushels of corn in the days gone by and turned the money over to me. I, the land speculator, got the savings of your life time and you got a piece of land which was here a couple of millions of years before land speculators ever were invented. Therefore I say again, high land values are of no more benefit to the farmer than high-priced farm implements are to him, for the actual farmer wants land and implements for use and not for speculation.
EFFECT OF INHERITANCE.
Now let us put the case differently. Tom, the owner of the aforementioned Kansas farm lives on it until he dies. Of
