greaterThan tag

[mucus snot]

Hi,
I am trying to use logic:greaterThan, but comparing a bean property to 
another bean property.
The code that I am using is
<logic:greaterThan name="searchStats" property="numHits" value="     " >
When value is a constant,  the code works.
But when I define a bean <bean:define id="theNumber" name="searchStats" 
property="topHits" scope="request">
and refer to this in the tag value="<%= theNumber %>", it won't compile 
because of a problem with setValue.

error:

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Unable to compile class for JSP

An error occurred at line: 45 in the jsp file: /results.jsp

Generated servlet error:
    [javac] Compiling 1 source file
C:\dropbox\eclipse\...\results_jsp.java:240: cannot resolve symbol
symbol  : method setValue (java.lang.Object)
location: class org.apache.struts.taglib.logic.GreaterThanTag
          _jspx_th_logic_greaterThan_1.setValue( theNumber );
apologies for not being very adept at debugging jsp

Any help appreciated,
Al