36 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Cuar. IT 
interest often affects profoundly the value of the shares. 
The stock of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad 
was quoted at $132 when a certain capitalist determined to 
buy it. Knowing that it would be almost impossible to 
acquire all the stock by ordinary means, he offered instead 
to take over as much as should be offered to him, provided 
it was more than half, and to give $200 in four per-cent 
bonds for each $100 share, —an offer which was accepted by 
most of the stockholders. The acceptance added at once 
fifty per cent to the market value of the stock, and improved 
even the value of the bonds; so that the value of the system, 
sold virtually as a whole, was much more than of the stock 
and bonds before the negotiation was opened. The valua- 
tion of the road will thus be different according to whether 
it is under the control of a particular interest or whether 
its ownership is widely distributed, as well as according to 
the purpose for which the valuation is made.! But in every 
instance the value of the railroad is the sum of the values 
of the complete aggregate of rights in it. 
If one bears in mind the explanations which have been 
given, there can scarcely be any difficulty in tracing out for 
each property right some underlying wealth, so that we may 
give adherence to the general principle that wealth and prop- 
erty dre coextensive. That this is true as a “general fact” 
cannot fail to be admitted even were it necessary to reject 
it as a “necessary truth.” But if our definitions of wealth 
and property are adopted, it becomes also a necessary truth. 
§ 10 
Having seen what property is, we may now classify 
property rights. There are two chief classes, complete 
rights and partial rights. A complete, or practically 
complete, right, or “fee simple” to an article of wealth, is a 
right to all those uses of that article which are owned; a 
1 The completest account of railway valuation is that contained 
in Bulletin. 21, “The Commercial Valuation of Railway Operating 
Property,” United States Census, 1905.