Sec. 9] PROPERTY 35
owner of land wishes to sell and convey an unencumbered
fee simple title, he finds it necessary to extinguish all out-
standing leases, or claims for future services, often at con-
siderable cost. Recently the New York Reform Club
sold its leasehold in a building for $25,000, because the pur-
chaser could not afford to wait for the expiration of the
lease. The total ownership always includes the ownership
of the tenant.
In like manner, the total value of any concrete wealth
is the total value of the property rights in it. The close
correspondence between wealth and property gives us a
new method of appraising wealth, namely, by appraising
the property rights to it. In fact, we are here provided
with another sense of appraisement of wealth, in addition
to the several already given in Chapter I. Such appraise-
ment may mean, not what the whole article of wealth
would sell for en bloc, but the sum of the values of the par-
tial rights to it when these latter are appraised on the basis
of small individual sales. Thus, the value of a railroad,
operating under normal conditions, is found by taking the
sum of the values of its stocks and bonds. Railways are
seldom sold as a whole, but their stocks and bonds are
constantly on the market, and are often the only means of
affording a valuation.
It is true that under these circumstances the market price
of the stock would form no basis for judging what would
be the value of the road if sold as a whole. There would
need to be added the value of “control.” But this will
be accounted for by an addition to the value of such of the
shares as will secure this control. “Control” is the power,
coming from a majority of votes, to obtain from the road
some services which would not be possible without such
majority ownership. The additional benefit thus obtained
may be illegitimate, as when the parties in control vote
themselves large salaries. But whether legitimate or ille-
gitimate, the power to make the road better serve one’s
