WHAT IS LEGAL VALUE?
[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR:] Srn,—In asking this question, I do not invite you to open your columns to an endless discussion on the postulates of political economy. What I should like to ascertain, with your assistance, is whether there is any recognised authorita- tive legal definition of value. What is the meaning Lord Loreburn, Lord Halsbury, Lord James, and Lord Shaw would by consent attach to the term, as lawyers, not as economists or as metaphysicians ? Has the word any recognised legal meaning ; or is it one of the privileges of Parliament that the House of Commons may at any time arbitrarily alter its meaning, and no one say them nay, if only the alteration is made by what they are pleased to call a Money Bill? I am ashamed to have to ask these elementary questions, but, knowing how diverse the economical definitions of value are, and how controversial the whole subject is, I am curious to know what incontrovertible legal meaning attaches to the word " value " wherever it occurs in the Finance Bill. For example, every political economist is at liberty to give his own interpretation to the word "value" in the clause which provides that "undeveloped land duty shall not be charged so far as the site value of the land is due to the value of the land for agricultural purposes " ; but how must a lawyer define these two separate uses of the word P—I am, Sir, &c.,
A LAYMAN.
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