Ownership 
 
 AND 
 
 J\(atural J^ght 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. R. I. HOLAIND, S. J 
 
 ^professor of €tl)U0, 
 
 Woodstock College, Maryland. 
 
 Baltimore and New York: 
 HILL & HARVEY, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 1887. 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 
 BY 
 
 HILL Cy- HAR VE F, 
 1887. 
 
 All rights rese7'ved. 
 
 Pref^H of 
 
 FlJJlJlS, BKATTY&CO. . 
 linlfimore, Md. 
 
AN OPEN LETTER. 
 
 
 To His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons. 
 
 Your Eminence : 
 
 When I solicited your approbation 
 On for my little work on Ownership and Natural Right, you 
 \ were kind enough to write to me : I regard such a work 
 
 as most timely. ... It will command widespread attention, 
 and will not fail to exercise a salutary influence.’’ 
 
 In a subsequent conversation, you expressed an earnest 
 wish that the position of the Catholic Church should be 
 well understood by the laboring classes. For, if the Church 
 must maintain, as a sacred trust confided to her by God, 
 the principles which fence in the right of property, and 
 secure the foundation of social order ; she is also bound in 
 • virtue of her mission, to pour a healing balm on the wounds 
 of Lazarus, and to proclaim to the world the duties of Dives ; 
 duties which must be fulfilled, if the right of property is to 
 remain inviolate, and if society is to be saved from blood- 
 shed and anarchy. 
 
 Your Eminence laid down three propositions, which, if 
 memory does not play me false, may be formulated as 
 follows : 
 
 1st, The Church has always been, and shall ever be, 
 the steadfast friend of the poor and of the workingman. 
 
 2 nd, Should Capitalists or Monopolists combine to oppress 
 the poor, or to force down wages, the Church would not be 
 
 (i) 
 
found on the side of tlie oppres ors. Nor can she use her 
 moral power to prevent the wage-workers from combining 
 to maintain their liberty, and vindicate their just rights. 
 
 3rd, Every effort of the poor and of the working class, 
 to improve by lawful means their present condition, must 
 receive the sympathy and support of the Catholic Church. 
 
 These declarations are so far-reaching, so well calculated 
 to remove prejudices and prevent misunderstandings, that I 
 do not feel justified in confining their usefulness to my own 
 personal instruction. I must beg leave to set them forth in 
 the opening pages of a work, wherein the right of individual 
 ownership, in Land as well as in Capital, is upheld in the 
 name both of Natural Law and of Social Science. 
 
 Your Eminence’s most humble and obedient servant, 
 
 R. I. HOLAIND. 
 
 Rev. Dear Father: 
 
 You have correctly recorded in the foregoing lines, the 
 sentiments I expressed to you at our last interview. 
 
 Faithfully yours in Xt. 
 
 t J. CARD. GIBBONS, 
 
 Archbishop of Baltimore. 
 
 Baltimore, Sept. 5, 1887, 
 
Letter of his Grace M. A. Corrigan, D. D., 
 Archbishop of New York. 
 
 New York, Sept. 22d, 1887. 
 
 Rev. Dear Father: 
 
 I heartily concur in the opinion ex^ 
 pressed by His Eminence, Cardinal Gibbons, of your work 
 on Ownership and Natural Rights The subject is so 
 important, and of such deep interest, particularly at the 
 present moment, that its elucidation, according to the dictates 
 of sound reason, cannot but prove most acceptable and pro- 
 ductive of very great good. I congratulate you on the 
 happy thought of undertaking so timely a task, as well as 
 on the success with which it has been accomplished. 
 
 I also unite with his Eminence in proclaiming that the 
 Church has ever been, and will ever be the friend of the 
 poor. The whole history of Christianity is a luminous 
 proof of this assertion ; whence Bossuet, contrasting the 
 condition of the poor in Pagan and Christian times, could 
 say with truth, “ The Church therefore, may be called the 
 city of the poor, as it is the city of God.” For the Church, 
 as the mouth-piece of God, is debtor to all men, ^‘to the 
 Greeks and to the barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise,” 
 proclaiming and prescribing to all their just rights and duties • 
 teaching with all care, as St. Augustine beautifully wrote, 
 long ago, “ to whom honor is due, and affection . . . and 
 exhortation and discipline . . . showing how all of these 
 
are not equally suitable to all, but that charity is due to all, 
 and wrong to none,'' In opposing theories that would 
 subvert social order, the Church whilst fulfilling a sacred 
 duty, secures the welfare of all classes of society, and not 
 least of all, of the poor ; for should these pernicious theories 
 be translated into facts, the laboring classes and the poor, 
 by losing their hard earnings which they could least of all 
 afford to spare, would be the first to suffer and most to be 
 pitied. The Church, then, in repudiating false systems of 
 social ethics, proves herself the true friend of the poor, and 
 we may well repeat the words of the Sovereign Pontiff, in 
 his Encyclical of Nqvember, 1885: ‘‘The Church, the 
 immortal work of the God of Mercy, though she looks 
 directly and essentially to the salvation of souls and to their 
 obtaining the happiness of heaven, is even in temporal 
 matters the source of benefits as many and as great as if she 
 had been established chiefly and above all to insure the 
 prosperity of this life on earth.” 
 
 We owe you, -Rev. Dear Father, a debt of gratitude 
 for confirming ‘ by the light of reason the teachings of the 
 Church on Ownership and Property, and trust that your 
 work may dispel the mist of error from the minds of many, 
 and substitute instead the abiding radiance of natural and 
 revealed truth. 
 
 I am, Rev. Dear Father, very truly yours, 
 
 M. A. CORRIGAN, 
 Archbishop of New York, 
 
 Rev. R. I. Holaind, S. J., 
 
 Woodstock, Md, 
 
 (iv) 
 
(Preface. 
 
 A mong the maxims of practical reason, several appeal 
 to the human understanding with such evidence, that 
 men at large accept them without, for a moment, question- 
 ing their soundness. Those principles stand in the light of 
 axioms or postulates, which the masters of Moral Science 
 explain rather than demonstrate, and which generation after 
 generation receives as the inherited wisdom of the past, to 
 be bequeathed to future ages, as a standard of right, and a safe 
 rule of conduct. The right of property is one of those 
 practical truths, which the civilized world has held as self- 
 evident. 
 
 But, of late, every axiom, every postulate, has been 
 arraigned before the tribunal of Science, and required to 
 show cause why it should command the assent of ^ankind, 
 Ownership of every description^ has been assailed by Pierre 
 Proudhon, with a sort of blasphemous fierceness which ' has 
 compelled both Christians and Scientists to turn away in 
 disgust. An eminent English writer, Mr. 'Herbert Spencer, 
 after granting the right of property, has tried to show that 
 it did not extend to the soil, and that individual ownership, 
 to land was a breach of Natural Law. Mr. Henry George 
 
 (V) ' ' , ■ ' 
 
VI. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 has made the principles of Mr. Spencer popular ; and after 
 casting upon them the glamour of his own brilliant style, 
 has drawn the consequences with a fearlessness which has 
 made him at once the standard-bearer of those who assail 
 ownership of land. 
 
 Strange to say, many men of learning have accepted the 
 premises of Mr. Spencer, and demurred at the conclusions 
 of Mr. George. — 
 
 Gentlemen ! Let us be consistent. If no man may 
 lawfully own an inch of ground, you cannot object to a land 
 tax which amounts to confiscation. If you do not allow the 
 state to interfere with vested rights, give those rights a more 
 solid basis than mere legal enactments. 
 
 If we would reach those first principles by which human 
 actions must be tested, we must turn to the true standard of 
 morality, Natural Law, which is but an effulgence of the 
 divine will and wisdom, reflected by the will and intellect 
 of man. It becomes necessary to ascertain the boundaries 
 of Natural and Positive Law — a discussion which may 
 appear dry, uninteresting, and savormg of scholastic refine- 
 ment, but which is unavoidable, if we must seek the very 
 foundation of the right of Ownership. 
 
 Candidly, we cannot fight the battle of truth on the 
 ground selected by Gen. Francis A. Walker. In Scribner’s 
 Magazine, January, 1887, page 118, the learned economist 
 arrives at the following conclusion : “ The advantages at- 
 
 tending private ownership, notwithstanding the admitted 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Vll. 
 
 fact that the system sacrifices, in its very beginning, the 
 equities of the subject matter, are so manifest, so conspic- 
 uous, so vast, that there seems little danger that the scheme 
 of Messrs. Hill, Wallace, and George will ever come to 
 prevail over the plain, frank, blunt common sense of the 
 English race.’^ We cannot believe that the common sense 
 of the English race is too blunt, and too plain, to take into 
 account the equities of the subject matter ; and we emphat- 
 ically deny that the equities of the subject matter are on the 
 side of Messrs. Hill, Wallace, and George. Equity and 
 Expediency may seem at times to part company, but, in the 
 long run, they are bound to meet. Nothing unjust can be 
 truly expedient. It is the special purpose of this little essay 
 to show that, with regard to ownership. Equity and Expe- 
 diency stand together, with joined hands, beaming forth 
 hope, if not gladness, unto all men and all nations, that do 
 not swerve from the path of Justice. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 ✓ 
 
 https://archive.org/details/ownershipnaturalOOhola 
 
(^TENTS, 
 
 Chapter I. — Socialism and Communism. 
 
 Professional Socialists — Wagner, Von Ket- 
 teler, Lamotte Fenelon, Thomas More — 
 Definition of Socialism and Communism — Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer — Mr. Henry George — Proud- 
 hon. 
 
 Chapter II. — Statement of the Question. Defi- 
 nition of Ownership. 
 
 Main Question and Crucial Test — Definition 
 of Ownership according to Roman Jurisconsults 
 — American and English Lexicons — Various 
 Questions which Must be Solved. 
 
 Chapter III. — Natural Law — Jus gentium — Posi- 
 tive Law. 
 
 Difference between the three— -St. Thomas 
 Aquinas, Lessius, De Lugo, Puffendorf — Insti- 
 tutes of Justinian. 
 
X. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter IV. — The Right of Ownership demon- 
 strated by Deduction. 
 
 Duty of Man to accomplish his Destiny — 
 Necessity of Ownership to secure the fulfill- 
 ment of that Duty — Collective Ownership pre- 
 supposes Individual Ownership — Why Collec- 
 tive Ownership fails in practice — Demonstration 
 drawn from the Nature of Man, considered as 
 a free, responsible Being. 
 
 Chapter V. — Ownership Demonstrated by In- 
 duction. 
 
 Instinct of Animals and Natural Inclination 
 of Men — Taparelli d’Aseglio, Thiers — Social 
 Development — de Laveleye, W. Roscher. 
 
 Chapter VI. — Abstract and Concrete Right. 
 
 Messrs. Bastiat and de Laveleye — Natural 
 Equality — Landowner’s Baby and Workhouse 
 Baby — Specific and Individual Rights. 
 
 Chapter VII. — What can we Own? — Occupancy 
 vs. Labor. — Increment. 
 
 01)jects to be Owned must be either Con- 
 sumable or fit to bear the Stamp of Person- 
 ality — They must be Limited in Quantity — 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Occupancy, Effective, Legal, Political — Occu- 
 pancy may be expressed in terms of Labor — 
 Increment, Natural, Artificial, Unearned. 
 
 Chapter VIII. — Ownership in Land. 
 
 The leaders of modern thought, and Black 
 Hawk — Ex-President Woolsey, Prof. Kent, 
 Prof. Stockl, M. Thiers, Prof. Roscher, Du- 
 pont, I. Kant, Locke — Does Land differ es- 
 sentially from those things which are rightfully 
 property — Prof. Sidgwick — Can the value of 
 land be easily distinguished from the value of 
 improvements — Admission of Mr. George — 
 Exclusiveness essential to ownership, found in 
 Tribal or National property — Compensation or 
 no compensation — Mr. Spencer and Mr.George 
 at variance. 
 
 Chapter IX. — The Statics of Mr. Spencer. 
 
 “All have equal rights to the use of this 
 world” an equivocal statement — Occupancy of 
 the whole earth — Are existing titles legitimate? 
 — Timie as a Legalizer — Another equivoce! 
 statement of Mr. Spencer — The Squatter and 
 the Cosmopolite. 
 
xii 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter X. — Absolute or not Absolute ? 
 
 Must the right of Property be absolute, or 
 cease to exist ? — In what sense it may be said 
 that the right of property is absolute — Duties 
 entailed according to the nature of the property 
 held — Eminent Domain — Differences between 
 Ownership and Usufruct. 
 
 Chapter XI. — Can the State grant a Deed ? 
 
 The negative answer leads to an absurdity — 
 Functions of the Government — The Govern- 
 ment does not create the right, but sanctions 
 it — Opinions of W. Roscher, A. Thiers, Prof. 
 Sidgwick, S. Mill, de Laveleye, Ouesnay. 
 
 Chapter XII. — Abuse and Remedy. 
 
 Transfers of Capital due solely to specula- 
 tion — Latifundia — Caution necessary on the 
 part of the State in dealing with landed prop- 
 erty — Aristotle and Phaleas. 
 
 Chapter XIII. — Land Tax. 
 
 Ouesnay, Adam Smith, Turgot, Storch — 
 Opinion of Malesherbes with regard to the 
 administration of Turgot; of Nesselrode, with 
 regard to that of Storch — Difference of opinion 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Xlll. 
 
 between Ouesnay and Mr. George — What 
 would be effects of land tax as the sole tax — 
 Equities of the case. 
 
 Chapter XIV. — Objections Drawn from Political 
 Economy. 
 
 First economic principle of Mr. George mis- 
 leading, corrected by Mr. de Laveleye — Own- 
 ership in land is not the cause why material 
 progress fails to relieve poverty — Why wages 
 tend to a minimum — Why we suffer from re- 
 curring paroxysms of industrial depression — 
 Mulhall, Mr. Atkinson, Mr. Gunton, Karl Marx 
 — Speculation, Over-production, Transforma- 
 tion of Circulating into Fixed Capital — Back to 
 Aristotle ! 
 
 Conclusion. 
 
 AiT'ENDIX. 
 
By whomsoever the trees were felled and the land was 
 cleared, even to him belongs the field thus made, say the 
 wise men. To him also the deer belongs who first wounded 
 it with an arrow or any other weapon.” — (Manu. Book IX, 
 S’loka 44, Paris, 1830, Levrault.) 
 
 ''We might recognize the equal right to land, and yet 
 tyranny and spoliation be continued.” — (Henry George, 
 Social Problems^ Chap. XVIII., last paragraph.) 
 
WNERSHIP 
 
 AND 
 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM. 
 
 What is Socialism? This question might do 
 very well for a riddle or a conundrum. Should 
 we answer that Socialists are men who strongly 
 express their dissatisfaction with the present 
 social adjustments, our definition would prove 
 broad enough, but it would have a beautiful 
 vagueness. There are Pr ofessorial Socialists, or 
 Socialists of the chair, who favor Paternal gov- 
 ernment, i. e., a more active State influence. 
 These gentlemen are learned professors, who, 
 like Hobbes, would set up a Leviathan whose 
 strength none could resist ; but theirs is at least 
 a civilized monster, well grounded in Hegelian 
 
 ah) 
 
16 
 
 OWNKKSnil’ AND 
 
 ethics, and brimful of political economy. The 
 only inconvenience about it would be, that feeling' 
 its own strength, it might crush initiative, trample 
 down freedom, and enslave the people for the 
 people’s good. Americans prefer less fondling, 
 and more elbow room. But whatever we may 
 think of the system itself, it is not what common 
 people call Socialism ; and the term Socialist is 
 a misnomer when applied to such men as Wag- 
 ner, the friend of Prince Von Bismarck. Much 
 more do we object to the coupling of this word 
 with names which ought to remain embalmed in 
 the memory of every true friend of the human 
 race, the names of Bishop Ketteler, Lamotte 
 Fenelon, and Thomas More. The illustrious 
 Bishop of Mayence devoted the greater part of 
 his life to bettering the condition of the poor, the 
 workingmen, and the disinherited. If this be 
 Socialism, then every true Christian is a Socialist. 
 Fenelon wrote a work of fiction for the in- 
 struction of a prince who might easily have been 
 led astray by the false maxim that the people is 
 for the prince, not the prince lor the people. In 
 the twelfth book, he sketches a plan of paternal 
 government which is more beautiful than prac- 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 17 
 
 ticable ; but not a trace bf Socialism, in the 
 ordinary sense of the word, can be found in the 
 ideal constitution of Salentum. The martyr 
 chancellor, whilst dealing justice with great firm- 
 ness and integrity, according to the laws of 
 England, devoted a few leisure hours to a work 
 of fancy, in which he describes an imaginary 
 island where not only the ten commandments, but 
 even the counsels of the Gospel, are carried out 
 as far as possible. When such fictions are not 
 levelled at vested rights, not only are they harm- 
 less, but they may help to raise our standard of 
 social morality. The author himself thus ex- 
 pressed his opinion of his work : “It is no better 
 worthie than to lye hidden, in his (Thomas More’s) 
 own land, or to be consecrated to Vulcan.” Boys 
 may take the travels of Jules Verne as hard facts, 
 or the Coming Race^ of Bulwer Lytton as a true 
 forecast of the future ; but grown men capable 
 of such gullibility would resemble a friend of 
 mine, who chancing to meet the truthful history 
 of Gotham by the venerable Knickerbocker, 
 forthwith began to take notes, which he meant to 
 use as historical references. 
 
 To shun the blunders that spring from too 
 
18 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 broad a definition, let us call Socialism : That 
 political system which denies the right of private 
 ownership in Capital, in Land, or in both. It 
 differs from Communism which denies every kind 
 of ownership, and asserts the individual as well 
 as the specific equality of all men. According to 
 these levellers, not only land and capital, but also 
 wealth not available for investment, and the very 
 pittance earned by daily toil, ought to be equally 
 divided. Nay, some of them go so far as to 
 advocate a division of matrimonial privileges. 
 Karl Marx is the standard-bearer of those who 
 condemn private ownership in capital ; Mr. Her- 
 bert Spencer denies the right of possessing land, 
 and considers a wholesale confiscation as lawful, 
 on condition that a fair compensation be given to 
 the land-owners. Mr. Henry George emphati- 
 cally denies that any compensation is due ; but 
 unwilling to convulse society, he resorts to a pro- 
 gressive land-tax which must gradually absorb 
 the full amount of the rent. 
 
 “It is only necessary to tax the land up to its 
 full value. Do that, and without any talk about 
 dispossessing landlords, without any use of the 
 ugly word confiscation, without any infringement 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 19 
 
 of the just rights of property, the land would 
 become virtually the people’s, while the landlords 
 would be left the absolute and unqualified pos- 
 sessors of — their deeds of title and conveyance. 
 — The Land Question. Chapter X. 
 
 This looks very much like adding insult to 
 injury. Since Mr. George admits private owner- 
 ship in capital, denies it in land, and can brook 
 no compensation, he is less radical than Karl 
 Marx, and more radical than Herbert Spencer. 
 We might perhaps call him a mitigated Socialist 
 — Communist, he is not. 
 
 ■ .If he has been often misunderstood, he must 
 blame himself for it. In one place he preaches 
 equality,* in another he states that even if pos- 
 
 * “We have traced the unequal distribution of wealth which is the 
 curse and menace of modern civilization, to the institution of private 
 property in land (B. vi. C. 2). ... We must make land common prop- 
 erty. ... It will substitute equality for inequality. . . . The progress of 
 society might be, and if it is to continue, must be toward equality, not 
 toward inequality. ... If we are all here by the equal permission of 
 the Creator, we are all here with an equal title to the enjoyment of his 
 bounty, with an equal right to the use of all that nature so impartially 
 offers. This is a right which is natural and inalienable ; it is a right 
 which vests in every human being as he enters the world, and during 
 his continuance in the world, can be limited only by the equal right of 
 others.’* (B. vii. C. i). 
 
 “ Where there is gross inequality in the distribution of wealth, the 
 more democratic the government, the worse it will be,” (B. x. C. 4, 
 p. 381). 
 
20 
 
 OWNERSmi' AND 
 
 sible, it would not be desirable; f in a third he 
 seems to have no objection to a man accumula- 
 ting as many millions as he can. J Of course he 
 could reconcile these statements in some way, 
 but those who pay attention to the first, take him 
 to be a communist; readers who meet the second, 
 think him very conservative, and those who pay 
 more attention to the third, are inclined to con- 
 sider him as a friend of the bloated capitalist. 
 
 In his introduction to “Progress and Poverty,” 
 he has the followino; strangle sentence : — 
 
 “What I have done in this book, if I have 
 correctly solved the great problem I have sought 
 to investigate, is to -unite the truth perceived by 
 the school of Smith and Ricardo, to the truth 
 perceived by the school of Proudhon and Las- 
 
 f “ An equal distribution of land is impossible, and everything short 
 of that would only be a mitigation, not a cure.” (B. vi. C. i). “It 
 would be impossible to secure the equal rights of all in that way, even 
 if such a division were not in itself impossible.” {Social Problevis,, 
 C. xix). 
 
 “ I do not say that absolute equality could be had, or w'ould be 
 desiral^lc.” (Ibid. C. viii). 
 
 J “ For my part, I would put no limit to acquisition. No matter how 
 many millions any man can get by methods which do not involve the 
 robbery of others — they are his; let him have them. I would not even 
 ask him for charity, or have it dinned into his ears, that it is his duty 
 to help the poor.” {Social Problems, C. ix.) 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 21 
 
 salle, to show that the laissez faire opens the 
 way to a realization of the noble dreams of 
 Socialism ” 
 
 Now, what is the truth perceived by the school 
 of Smith and Ricardo? Laissez faire? — This is 
 one of the three formulas of the physiocratic, not 
 of the Manchester school ; it is clue to Legendre 
 and it means that the State should let commerce 
 and industry alone. It is completed by the for- 
 mula of Gournay, ^Laissez passer', i. e. do not 
 interfere with exchange ; and that of Ouesnay, 
 
 ' Pas trap goiiverner' , do not rule too much! After 
 the acceptance' of 'Laissez faire' the reader would 
 think that Mr. George follows Mr. Spencer, and 
 is for mimimizing the action cf the government. 
 In going over the XVIIth chapter of Social 
 Problems, he may believe at first, that this is the 
 right construction, but before the end of the 
 chapter he will have found out that the govern- 
 ment is to possess all the land, issue all the money, 
 assume all the railroad business, control both 
 telegraphs and telephones, take charge of sup- 
 plying cities with gas, water, and electricity — in 
 short, take upon itself businesses which are in their 
 natu"e monopolies ; besides public instruction, 
 
22 
 
 OWNEKSIlir AND 
 
 which of its nature can hardly be monopoly. 
 There is very little room left for laissez faire in 
 a government of this kind. 
 
 We are not aware of any particular truth per- 
 ceived by Lassalle ; he simply explained Karl 
 Marx to the people ; but as for Pierre Proudhon, 
 who came before both, he had something of his 
 own to say, and here it is : — 
 
 “If God did not exist, there would be no pro- 
 prietor ; this is the conclusion of Political Econ- 
 omy ; and the conclusion of science is, this owner- 
 ship is the crime of the Supreme Being. There 
 is for man but one duty, it is to deny God. 
 Property is the religion of might ! Property is 
 theft ! I own nothing in this world but this 
 definition,” (by the way, he stole it from Brissot), 
 “but I hold it more precious than the millions of 
 Rothschild ! ” ( Contradictions Economiques^ Chap. 
 
 XL) 
 
 I spare the reader most of the insane blasphe- 
 mies which accompany these statements. 
 
 Proudhon does not spare either Socialists or 
 Communists. “ Socialism is a community of evil.” 
 
 “Communists ! I loathe your very looks, your 
 presence is a stench in my nostrils !” Not par- 
 liamentary ! — Of course, Mr. George feels as 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 23 
 
 much loathing as we do for that mad ranting, but 
 why tell us that he wants to unite the truth per- 
 ceived by Smith with that perceived by Proudhon? 
 Evidently Rhetoric has played him false, as it is 
 very apt to do, when it glitters overmuch. 
 
24 
 
 OWNERSJIIP AND 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION — DEFINITION OF 
 
 OWNERSHIP. 
 
 To search and test the shifting, and often con- 
 flicting tenets of Socialists, would indeed prove a 
 thankless task, but there is one central position, 
 around which all side-issues revolve, and this 
 position Mr. George defines with candor and 
 perspicuity : 
 
 “When it is proposed to abolish private prop- 
 erty in land the first question that will arise is 
 that of justice. . . . The question is not so much 
 ‘is it wise’? as ... is it right?” 
 
 “This tendency of popular discussion springs 
 from a law of the human mind, it rests upon a 
 vauue and instinctive recognition of what is 
 
 o o 
 
 probably the deepest truth we can grasp. That 
 alone is wise which is just, that alone is enduring 
 which is right. ... I bow to that arbitrament, and 
 accept this test. ... If private property in land 
 be just, then is the remedy I propose a false 
 one!” — (Progress, etc., B. VII.'' 
 
 Just so! These are both the main question 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 25 
 
 and the crucial test. Let us' then eschew all side 
 questions, and show that ownership in general, 
 and especially, ownership in land is perfectly 
 legitimate. If Mr. George’s name is often met 
 with in these pages it is owing to the fact that this 
 brilliant writer is undoubtedly the most gifted, 
 and most prominent defender of Socialism* on this 
 side of the Atlantic. We do not question either 
 his intentions or his abilities, but we find fault 
 both with his premises and with his conclusions. 
 
 “Make thyself a definition of the thing which 
 is presented to thee . . . and tell thyself its proper 
 name.” — (Marcus Aurelius, quoted by Henry 
 George.) 
 
 The advice of the crowned stoic, who knew so 
 well, both how to shed the blood of Christians, 
 and how to throw over the Imperial robes the 
 cloak of benevolence and pagan philosophy, was 
 not new, even in his time, and is useful, even in 
 ours. Since then we have to discuss the owner- 
 ship of land let us define what we mean by the 
 term ownership or property. 
 
 The Roman jurists had defined it: “The right 
 
 * Although the nationalization of land is a distinctly socialistic 
 scheme, Mr. George objects to the name of Socialist, v/e shall therefore 
 abstain from coupling his name with the obnoxious epithet. 
 
26 
 
 OWNERSIII? AND 
 
 of freely disposing of a material object, within the 
 limits of the law.” Three objections have been 
 raised against this definition. 
 
 I. A person who has the usufruct oi an object, 
 b e. the right to use it for his own benefit, has the 
 free disposal of it within the limits of the law, and 
 yet usufruct is not ownership ; but it may be 
 replied that the disposal, in that case, is not per- 
 fectly free, that it is not jtis perfecte disponendi 
 when it does not involve the power of making a 
 substantial change, of bartering, of alienating, of 
 giving away, or of possessing without limit of 
 time, or fear of revocation. The words perfecte 
 disponendi seem to bar an interpretation which 
 would include at the same time both ownership 
 and usufruct. 
 
 II. If right m re is perfect, how can it be limited 
 by law ? To this we ansAver that no human 
 right, which may happen to conflict with an- 
 other, is absolutely unlimited. Its perfection 
 consists in the moral power of resisting any 
 counter claim of the same order. Hence when 
 the jurists call the right of ownership a right of 
 perfect disposal, they always understand that in 
 the exercise of it, man does not assail a superior 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 27 
 
 right, as, for instance, the right of Eminent 
 
 Domain. But what law can be understood as 
 
 « 
 
 determining those limits? We answer: Both 
 the Natural Law and the Civil Law, when the 
 latter merely applies the principles of the former. 
 Later on, we shall treat more at length of this sort 
 of limitation. 
 
 III. The third objection is this : If the right of 
 free o>x pe^'fect disposal belongs to the very essence 
 of ownership, then the right also of transferring 
 property must be included. Now we find this 
 latter right wanting in the idea of the most perfect 
 ownership. For the Maker of the Universe is 
 doubtless, in an eminent degree, the owner of the 
 work of his hands, and yet He cannot transfer 
 his sovereign dominion. If then, where owner- 
 ship is most perfect, the right of transfer is not 
 found, it cannot be essential, and the right of free 
 or perfect disposal must collapse with it. 
 
 This argument would be conclusive if the words ' 
 had strictly the same meaning when applied to 
 God, and when predicated of man. Between the 
 infinite necessary Being and the work of His 
 hands there is indeed a like^tess on which one may 
 construct an argument of analogy not of identity 
 
28 
 
 OWNEKSIIII' AM) 
 
 or absolute similarity, and therefore any reasoning 
 based on this latter must necessarily be mislead- 
 ing. The existence of man being accidental, his 
 most inalienable rights must needs follow the 
 condition of the person that owns them. More- 
 over, in the application of those rights, the rela- 
 tions which spring up between a man and the 
 various objects of the material world around him, 
 are themselves accidental. Hence man may 
 transfer his rights to some particular being, be- 
 cause the concrete right does not cling to the 
 substance of the owner. Not so with God, who 
 is essentially the first principle and last end of all 
 things. His dominion cannot be severed from 
 his being, he is necessarily the Lord and the 
 Master of all. Yet in that supreme ownership 
 there is a property which contains eminently the 
 right of transfer ; yet if that supreme ownership 
 cannot be tra^isferred, it may be communicated ; 
 in God it abides essentially ; in man it exists by 
 participation. 
 
 We have mentioned these objections not 
 because they offer any serious difficulty, but 
 because they gave us an opportunity to determine 
 with more accuracy the meaning of the old for- 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 29 
 
 mula. Thus it appears that the Roman definition 
 is both correct and pithy ; yet for the sake of 
 greater distinctness, we will expand it somewhat 
 and define ownership, as well as property (when 
 used in the sense of ownership) as : A right, 
 not limited in dtiration, fully to dispose of a material 
 object and of its tUility, within the limits assigned 
 by Nattiral Law, or by Civil Law, when the latter 
 interprets, and applies the former. 
 
 In order to be certain that we do not use the 
 words ownership and property in a sense which 
 would materially differ from the accepted one, we 
 turn to the standard lexicon. Webster defines 
 ownership : “The state of being an owner, the 
 right to own, the exclusive right of possession, 
 legal or just claim or title — Proprietorship.” 
 “ Property (Law). The exclusive right of pos- 
 sessing, enjoying and disposing of a thing — 
 ownership.” Our transatlantic cousins define 
 the same terms as follows : 
 
 Ownership — “The right by which a thing 
 belongs to some person or body, to the exclusion 
 of all others ” — Proprietorship. 
 
 Property — “The exclusive right of possessing, 
 enjoying and disposing of a thing.” — (John Ogilvie 
 and Charles Amandale.) 
 
30 
 
 OWNEKSnil’ AND 
 
 To compare these various definitions would be 
 a needless task ; to us they seem to explain and 
 supplement one another. 
 
 But as soon as we have, according to the im- 
 perial advice, made to ourselves a definition or 
 description of the thing presented to us, it becomes 
 our duty to meet the following questions: 
 
 If there be such a right as ownership, is it based 
 on Natural Law, or Civil Law, or on both? 
 
 Does it apply to landed estates as well as to 
 other material objects? 
 
 If civil society has once sanctioned it, is the 
 effect of such a sanction permanent or limited to 
 the generation which has granted the deed? 
 
 Is the right of ownership absolute as well as 
 irrevocable? If not absolute, should it not be 
 called usufruct rather than ownership? 
 
 If in the exercise of that right enormous abuses 
 spring up, is there any remedy applicable, any 
 power qualified to apply the remedy ? 
 
 We shall first answer these questions, and then 
 dispose of the objections which may not have 
 received sufficient consideration when discussing 
 the main points. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 31 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 NATURAL LAW JUS GENTIUM POSITIVE LAW. 
 
 In his Commentaries of the Laws of England, 
 Book 2 d, chap, ist, n. 8, Sir William Blackstone 
 makes the following statement : 
 
 “ There is indeed some difference among the 
 writers on natural law, concerning the reason 
 why occupancy should convey this right (the 
 original right to the permanent property in the 
 substance of the earth itself,) and invest one with 
 absolute property : Grotius and Puffendorf in- 
 sisting that this right of occupancy is founded on 
 a tacit and implied assent of all mankind, that the 
 occupant should become the owner, and Barbey- 
 rac, Titius, Mr. Locke, and others, holding that 
 there is no such implied assent, neither is it 
 necessary that there should be ; for that the very 
 act of occupancy alone, being a degree of bodily 
 labor, is from a principle of natural justice, with- 
 out any consent or compact, sufficient of itself to 
 gain a title. A dispute that savors too much of 
 nice and scholastic refinement.” 
 
 Whereupon the commentators observe : 
 
 “ But it is of great importance that moral obli- 
 
32 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 gations and the rudiment of laws should be re- 
 ferred to true and intelligible principles.” 
 
 We fully admit the correctness of this remark; 
 but in order to reach these true and intelligible 
 principles, it is indispensable to clear away an 
 ambiguity which has befogged the whole question. 
 
 Authors have used the words Nahiral Law and 
 Positive Law with perplexing vagueness. All 
 agree that those necessary, inflexible maxims of 
 conduct, which flash upon the mind with the evi- 
 dence of an axiom, belong to Natural Law ; while 
 the rules which derive their binding force from 
 human enactments belong to Positive Law. But 
 there is a middle and debatable ground, where 
 both blend harmoniously, and where it is some- 
 times difficult to determine where the binding 
 force of the law comes from. For instance. Nat- 
 ural Law forbids drivers to interlock wheels, but 
 whether they must pass each other on the right 
 or on the left depends entirely on local statutes ; 
 for there is no moral, intrinsic reason why one 
 side should be preferred to a!nother. Here both 
 rules are contrasted. Another Jehu drives at a 
 furious rate, to the manifest danger of the little 
 urchins who play in the middle of the street.. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 33 
 
 This is against natural law. State or municipal 
 authority interferes, and determines that six miles 
 is the highest rate that can be tolerated. This is 
 Positive Law; because no a pi'iori maxim fixes the 
 rate of speed. Yet it is positive law meeting and 
 interpreting natural law. 
 
 Again, human reason deduces from the first 
 axiom conclusions, which are more or less obvious, 
 more or less imperative, more or less conditional. 
 Human liberty then steps in, and determines the 
 conditions. Here is a variable factor which is 
 introduced, and which apparently takes away the 
 absolute character of the Law, Must that com- 
 pound product of natural law and free will be 
 referred to the former? Not without some qual- 
 ification. Mediaeval writers, as a rule, called 
 Natural Law, only those self-evident, universal 
 maxims which have the validity of axioms, and 
 the rules that are immediately and evidently de- 
 duced from them. Other deductions, when uni- 
 versally accepted, they referred to what they 
 called jus gentium, or Right of Nations, Less 
 obvious dictates of reason they considered as 
 merged in the considerations which guide the 
 Legislative Power, and consequently as comprised 
 
34 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 in the domain of mere positive law. Let us hear 
 on this subject the prince of Christian philoso- 
 phers : 
 
 “ Right, or a righteous deed, is an action by 
 which a person gives another his due according 
 to some sort of equality. But that equality may 
 be of two kinds : namely, that based on the very 
 nature of things (absolute), as when one gives as 
 much as he is to receive, and such is natural 
 justice ; or that based on agreement or mutual 
 consent (relative or proportional equality), when 
 one party is satisfied with a given compensation. 
 The latter equality may be verified in two ways : 
 first, by a private agreement, as when the mutual 
 consent is embodied in a contract between private 
 individuals ; secondly, by a public compact, when 
 the whole people agree that what is due and what 
 is given shall be held as proportional and com- 
 mensurate, or when the Prince who rules the 
 people and acts as its representative, shall have 
 so ordained — and this is positive Law. . . . 
 
 “ Should an act be at variance with natural law, 
 no human will could make it just.” (2^ 2"*^ q. 57, 
 art. 2.) 
 
 “ In the article preceding, we said that natural 
 right is founded on this, that two things are equal 
 or proportional from their very nature. But this 
 again may be based on two different considera- 
 tions. First, the intrinsic fitness of the two terms 
 of a relation, when the nature of those two terms 
 
NATURAL RU:UT. 
 
 35 
 
 is considered in itself : thus from the relation of 
 parent and child it follows, that the child must 
 receive nourishment from its parent. Secondly, 
 two things may have a natural fitness or propor- 
 tion, not when considered in their own being, or 
 absolutely, but when what flows from their nature 
 is taken into account — for instance, the ownership 
 of estates. For if a field be considered abso- 
 lutely, it has nothing in it that may make it the 
 property of this man rather than the property of 
 another, but if we take into account cultivation 
 and peaceful holding, then tliere is a just ground 
 why it should belong to its owner rather than to 
 any other man. With regard to the mere power 
 of taking possession of an object (occupancy), it 
 belongs not only to man, but also to other living 
 beings; and for this reason it is called a natural 
 right according to the first acceptation. . . . 
 
 Jiis gentium, the ■ right of nations, extends to 
 men alone : For, as Caius, the jurisconsult, has 
 it; ''What natural reason has established among 
 all men, that prevails among all nations, and is 
 called the jus gentium." 
 
 “As reason itself dictates that which belongs 
 to the right of nations, and is the nearest approach 
 to perfect equity ; rules based on that right do not 
 need a special institution, for they rest on reason 
 itself.”— ribid. a, 3.) 
 
 'rhus, according to St. Thomas, we have : 
 
36 
 
 OWNERSIITP AND 
 
 1st, The Natural Law, which is based on the 
 eternal fitness of things ; 
 
 2d, The Law of Nations, which is based on the 
 conclusions of human reasoning ; and 
 
 3rd, Positive Law, which depends on legal 
 enactments. 
 
 But most writers ignore the middle ground, 
 and refer every rule of conduct either to Natural 
 or to Positive Law ; whence arises a certain con- 
 fusion which is somewhat distressing to the 
 student. This will be best illustrated by com- 
 paring the statements of three men of great 
 learning and superior mental power, but different 
 in nationality, and in intellectual complexion. 
 
 Leonard Lessius, in his celebrated treatise 
 ^‘■De fustitia et fure" (Lib. 2, Cap. 5, Dub. 3*), 
 declares that the division of property, or individual 
 ownership, does not come from the law of nature, 
 but from the jus gentium, that is, according to the 
 definition of Caius endorsed by St. Thomas, from 
 a dictate of reason accepted by all civilized races. 
 The objection drawn from the legal axiom: 
 '"That which belongs to nobody becomes, by the law 
 of nature, the property of the first occupierj he 
 answers as follows: 
 
-NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 37 
 
 1st, y us gentium is sometimes called Natural 
 Law. 
 
 2nd, The division of estates is one thing, the 
 right of appropriation is another : The right of 
 appropriating material objects comes directly from 
 nature ; the division of property, from the right 
 of nations. 
 
 Positive Law Lessius does not mention in con- 
 nection with his thesis. He then proposes to 
 himself the following syllogism : 
 
 What reason dictates belongs to Natural Law. 
 But the division of property is dictated by reason. 
 Therefore it belongs to Natural Law. 
 
 In answer to the first premise, he replies that 
 a rule of conduct ordained by reason, belongs to 
 Natural. Law as far as the direction of reason 
 extends, or as far as the rule is imperative ; 
 moreover he admits that the division of property 
 is based on Natural Law, but he denies that nature 
 issues an absolute command, admitting of no ex- 
 ception whatever. The rule of nature is directive, 
 not absolutely imperative. 
 
 When we bear in mind the distinctions of St. 
 Thomas whose works were the constant study of 
 Lessius, his answer is perfectly clear. 
 
38 
 
 OWNEKSIIII’ AND 
 
 Cardinal de Lugo, also in his treatise De justitia 
 etjurc (Disputatio VI, sectio i“), gives very strong 
 reasons to prove that Natural Law requires the 
 division of estates. Raising the objection that 
 the law is not strictly universal, because all men 
 are not obliged to hold property, and all societies 
 are not obliged to divide, he replies, that 
 exceptional conditions do not invalidate a moral 
 law. To the objection that a moral law which 
 admits of exceptions does not properly be- 
 long to Natural right, which is essentially 
 universal, but to the jiis genthun, the answer 
 is that Justinian himself has used the term 
 jus natures as involving the jus gentium. This 
 assertion of de Lugo is borne out by the following 
 text of the Institutes of Justinian Book II, T. i, S. 
 ii : “Objects become individual property in 
 several ways. Of some we acquire domain by 
 the law of nature, which is also called jus gentium 
 — the law of nations” (Edit. Christoph. Henry, 
 Freiesleben page i8). Moreover, theologians 
 had come to call Natural Law, the rules of conduct 
 which reason dictates and which do not need for 
 their validity a positive enactment, added to nature 
 by the exercise of reason (Ibid. Sect. i“ nr. 5). 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 39 
 
 In this passage we come unawares upon one term 
 absorbing the meaning of the other. 
 
 Puffendorf (De Jure Naturae et Gentium, lib. 
 IV C. IV,) distinguishes two sorts of community 
 
 of goods, a nep'ative and a positive one. The 
 
 ^ ... . 
 
 former consists in this : that things whi^fcaTe not 
 
 i^<;wi.a-ppropriated and therefore belong as yet to no- 
 body, so that the exclusive character of ownership 
 has not yet made its appearance. The positive com- 
 munity consists in collective ownership — a distinc- 
 tion already found in the schoolmen, and in deLugo 
 in particular. He states that the former was the 
 primitive condition of mankind, but that reason 
 taught men that this could not last, and so by a 
 kind of tacit agreement, they began to occupy 
 and divide. After promising not to chide Hugo 
 Grotius for breach of orthodoxy, because he had 
 been soundly berated by others, Puffendorf takes 
 him to task for having said that if men had been 
 well behaved, they might have remained as they 
 were, helping themselves whenever and wherever 
 they thought fit. He tells him in substance : 
 
 Mark me, Hugo ! You have jumped from the 
 negative to the positive community without a 
 word of warning ! 
 
40 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 If by the words tacit agreeme^tt, Puffendorf means 
 what St. Thomas expresses by the word condichmi 
 i. e. a common consent, Trought about by the 
 evidence of reason, he does not deserve all the 
 scoldings that he has received ; (what he gave 
 Grotius he received himself from others, with 
 interest). But if he means a compact properly 
 so called, even implied, then, in the first place, 
 
 there is no trace of such a compact ; and secondly, 
 such a compact would be utterly invalid. First, 
 
 because the only foundation in right would have 
 been a negative ownership, i. e. men would have 
 given away what they did not possess ; secondly, 
 because their descendants could not be bound by 
 the acts of men with whom they have no political 
 connection in fact, of men who did not act as a 
 corporate body, but as mere individuals. We are 
 convinced that Puffendorf did not mean a compact, 
 but a mere assent, won by evidence alone ; for 
 he says in the 14th paragraph: “From this it 
 appears, in what sense we must understand what 
 some authors aver: that the right of property 
 belongs to natural law properly so called. We 
 must observe that the word natural right has two 
 meaningj,” etc., and he substantially repeats the 
 
NAl'URAL RIGHT. 
 
 41 
 
 explanation of de Lugo. Both the fourth and 
 fifth chapters are well worth reading. 
 
 Since the jus gentuim has been absorbed by 
 natural law, there is no reason why we should 
 cling to that word. Yet it is to be regretted that 
 both terms have not been preserved, or that 
 writers have not adopted the distinction of Wolf 
 (Inst. Jur. Nat. et Gen. § 1088), who acknowl- 
 edges two Rights of Nations, the one necessary, 
 the other subject to free will. The former cor- 
 responding to the assent, condictum, of St. Thomas 
 when it is imposed by a mandate of reason, 
 dictamine rationis, so that men are not at liberty 
 to refuse it ; the latter springing from that con- 
 dictum, when it is entirely left to human liberty. 
 In modern parlance. Jus gentium means Interna- 
 tional Law. 
 
 These explanations are long and perhaps wea- 
 risome, but we could not have suppressed them 
 without inviting a misunderstanding. We may 
 now state the orthodox principles, without fear 
 of equivocation. The right of appropriation, and 
 consequently of ownership, belongs to Natural 
 Law in its strictest sense. Occupancy is the fact 
 by which the right is applied to this or to that 
 
42 
 
 OWMiRSim* AND 
 
 material object. Positive I.aw gives occupancy 
 a sanction, which society is not at liberty to with- 
 
 hold. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE RIGHT OF OWNERSHIP DEMONSTRATED BY 
 
 DEDUCTION. 
 
 We shall not discuss the right of using for a 
 time, or consuming material objects, (dominium 
 transiens) for nobody, in his senses, ever ques- 
 tioned it. W e have to deal only with permanent 
 dominion. 
 
 Man has the duty, and, therefore, the right to 
 accornpiish those acts which are necessary to 
 attain the end of his being, and work out his 
 destiny; bni in order to do so, man is bound to 
 app-ajj.'i-iaie many exterior objects; hence the 
 right of aijisropriating .such objects is unquestion- 
 able — it springs from an essential duty. That 
 appropriation must be permanent ; for man cannot 
 incessantly continue the struggle for existence, 
 he has oi her duties to perform which prevent him 
 from being constantly engaged in the work of 
 appropriation. Should the effect of such appro- 
 priation be transient, these duties would become 
 
44 
 
 OWNEKSIIIP AND 
 
 impossible. Besides, nature has compelled him 
 to cease his labor at times; now if during those 
 intervals the effect of appropriation should cease, 
 he might lose the means of renewing his labors, 
 and this would defeat the purpose of appropria- 
 tion. 
 
 Secondly, Nature directs man to give his 
 faculties the fullest development which is practi- 
 cally attainable; but without permanent domain 
 this development would be unattainable. For, 
 should he devote his attention to cultivate sciences, 
 he would have either to starve or to rely on the 
 charity of other people. The former is evidently 
 against his duty to himself ; the latter would 
 compel him to rely on the kindness of others, and 
 the supply would be both insecure and enslaving. 
 Besides, the contributor must have hoarded up 
 something over and above his actual wants, for 
 the use either of himself or of his friends. Over 
 that something, he must have a perfect ownership, 
 since he can give it away ; but this very hypo- 
 thesis proves permanency, for those savings have 
 remained his own after he has ceased to need 
 them ; it proves exclusiveness, because he could 
 not hoard up first, and give up afterwards, what 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 45 
 
 any one might have appropriated as long as he 
 did not actually use it. We have then the three 
 characteristics of ownership, permanency, exclu- 
 siveness, free disposal. 
 
 Thirdly, Nature constantly teaches man the 
 necessity of providing for the future. Man is 
 subject to sickness, and must reach old age, unless 
 overtaken by death; when old or sick, he cannot 
 procure what is necessary to satisfy his wants. 
 He must therefore lay by enough for a rainy day. 
 Nature teaches the lesson most strikingly in the 
 little ant and bee that instinctively amass and lay 
 by their tiny store against the on-coming winter. 
 
 Fourthly, Man, in the sententious phrase of 
 Aristotle, is animal domesticum, or destined to 
 live in domestic society ; to raise children who 
 shall owe him their existence and in whom he will 
 perpetuate himself. The permanency and pro- 
 gress of the species depend on his faithful 
 discharge of those duties. But in order to fulfill 
 them, he must have permanent domain, for 
 otherwise he might die leaving his children 
 unprovided. If parents left nothing to their 
 offspring, then every generation would have to 
 begin the work over again, and each man would 
 
4G 
 
 OWNEKSIIH’ AND 
 
 be a Danaicl, forever pouring water into a f-ottoin- 
 less barrel. 
 
 Fifthly, Although man is animat domesticum 
 magis qiiam politicum according to the old axiom 
 of Aristotle, taken up by the schoolmen, yet, he 
 is also, by his very nature, a social lieing. Now 
 in a society, men must have various avocations; 
 they must be able to exchange and ha rum, give 
 and consume; this needs no proof. 
 
 Now, all those conditions suppose the free dis- 
 posal of that which is appropriated ; this free 
 disposal, itself implies exclusiveness, and exclu- 
 siveness, in turn, supposes permanency, and so 
 we come back again to the three charactej'i sties of 
 ownership — disposal, exclusiveness, permanency. 
 
 “ Halt ! ” would cry out a disciple of Cabet or 
 Fourier. “We grant you that each man is in duty 
 bound to. provide for himself and family, and that 
 in order to do so, he must own something perma- 
 nently, but could he not fulfill his duty just as 
 well if he held that property jointly with others ?” 
 Not as well, if we take warning from the fate of 
 the Phalansterians ; yet, under exc< pdon;d cir- 
 cumstances, it might be tried. But suppose the 
 experiment successful, what would have been ac- 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 47 
 
 complished Y Each one would have shifted a part 
 of his burden on others, and taken a part of their 
 burden in exchange. The duties and rights of 
 the community would be the aggregate duties 
 and rights of the members. Let us make this 
 plainer by a simple illustration : 
 
 Sam Slick has put his wife and children on his 
 wagon, or rather on the furniture and notions 
 which are piled up on the creaking vehicle. Sam 
 is going West. After an adventurous journey, 
 he finds in the prairie a spot to his liking, and 
 squats there. Fully aware that he must provide 
 for the future, he addresses himself resolutely to 
 the hard task of a pioneer. Thomas Cantwell, 
 who has followed the track of Sam, soon turns 
 up ; he settles by the side of the first comer, and 
 buoyed up by the same hopes, goes to work with 
 the same zest. Before long, each one finds that 
 his neighbor has many things which might be of 
 great use to both. Sam, for instance, has a won- 
 derful plow which goes deep into the ground, and 
 makes short work of roots ; Tom has a no less 
 wonderful mower that cuts hay by the ton ; both 
 meet on the border of their respective kingdoms : 
 "‘Sam, old fellow!” says Tom, “why could we 
 
48 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 not combine and make a good farm out of two 
 small ones ? ” “ Done ! ” replies his friend ; “ ’tis 
 
 a bargain,” Without more ado, they put their 
 goods and chattels in common, build a house 
 across the line which before divided the two set- 
 tlements, and begin a life of compound bliss. On 
 the worthy pair now devolves the care of two 
 families. From what source spring the duties 
 and consequently the rights of the firm Slick and 
 Cantwell ? From the duties and rights of both 
 partners. Take away that foundation, and noth- 
 ing can remain standing. Thus the rights of a 
 community presuppose the rights of its members. 
 Whether our friends have acted wisely, is quite 
 another question. Often do we find a house 
 which is too large for one family ; seldom do we 
 find one large enough for two. 
 
 Modern dreamers believe that collective own- 
 ership is the great nostrum which will cure all 
 social distempers. Repeated failures do not dispel 
 their illusions, but merely excite their wonder. 
 St, Thomas gives three very good reasons why 
 collective ownership should fail, and experience 
 has made good his assertions. 
 
 “With regard to exterior objects, man has two 
 
NATURAl. RIGHT. 
 
 49 
 
 powers — to acquire and dispose ” (i. e. according 
 to the dictates of reason). “ With regard to both 
 acquisition and dispensation, the holding of prop- 
 erty is not only lawful, but also necessary for 
 human life ; and this for three reasons : First, 
 Because man displays more thrift in acquiring 
 that which must remain his own, than goods which 
 are destined to many or all ; for (as it happens 
 where servants are in considerable number) each 
 one shirking toil, leaves to his neighbor the care 
 of supplying the wants of the community. Sec- 
 ondly, Because human interest will be better 
 promoted if each man has the care of supplying 
 a particular kind of community ; should every one 
 busy himself about every thing,, a great confusion 
 would be the result. Thirdly, Because by this 
 division the peace of society is better secured, 
 while each one is satisfied with his own portion.” 
 — (2®’ 2®®’ 9, 66, Art. 2.) 
 
 Whereupon, Puffendorf very justly observes 
 that the ineum and tmtm has been doubtless the 
 occasion of many quarrels, and many wars ; but 
 that if we take it away, we come at once to the 
 condition imagined by Hobbes, the war of all 
 against all — in fact, a general grabbing match in 
 which every one tries to hustle every one else out 
 of the way. 
 
 But, says Mr. George, every one is not selfish ! 
 
50 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 Happily not, but there are and shall ever be a 
 great many selfish men : human nature is natu- 
 rally selfish, and it is only supernatural virtue 
 which raises men habitually above self-interest, 
 or, as our friend Pufifendorf has it: “ It is an easy 
 task to imagine men as they might be, but an 
 impossible one to find them in actual life such as 
 they were in our fancy.” 
 
 Dreamers may object that some societies, based 
 on collective ownership, have existed and are yet 
 in existence. We reply political societies of 
 this kind, either have never existed, or have been 
 invariably swept away by the advances of civili- 
 zation. The nearest approach to a commonwealth 
 of the kind was made by the reductions of Para- 
 guay, but unfortunately the greed of merchants 
 and the anti-religious frenzy of such men as 
 Carvalho, put an end to the experiment before it 
 was completed. Should some friend of the human 
 race desire to make another attempt, we wish him 
 Godspeed ; but let him make the experiment 
 where it will not interfere with vested rights and 
 existing social institutions. We object to have 
 things pulled down, whilst we hold nothing but a 
 mortgage on Dreamland or Utopia. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 51 
 
 We can show from the testimony of two philan- 
 thropists, Messrs. Henry George, and R. J. 
 Wright, that the existence of small ascetic soci- 
 eties, is not to the point. Both admit that such 
 a community requires of its members complete 
 self-denial and a high moral perfection. The 
 masses will possibly reach that level when the 
 millennium begins, but in the meantime let us be 
 satisfied to live in this wicked world, as best we 
 can.* 
 
 The first demonstration is drawn from the end 
 and duties of man. The second may be drawn 
 from his nature considered in itself. Among all 
 the beings that exist in this world, man is the 
 
 * “ 1 am not willing to say that in the progress of humanity, a state 
 of society may not he possible which shall realize the formula of Louis 
 Blanc ; ^from each according to his abilities^ to each according to his wants ^ 
 for there exists to-day in the religious orders of the Catholic Church, 
 associations which maintain the communism of early Christianity. 
 But it seems to me that the only power by which such a state of society 
 can be attained and preserved is that which the framers of the schemes 
 I speak of ignore, even when they do not directly antagonize — a deep, 
 definite, intense, religious faith, so burning as to utterly melt away the 
 thought of self.” — {Froble??is^ C. x., p. 95.) 
 
 “ Socialism in anything approaching such a form (The Reductions of 
 Paraguay) modern society cannot successfully attempt. The only force 
 that has ever proved competent for it — a strong definite religious faith 
 — is wanting and is daily growing less. We have passed out of the 
 socialism of the tribal state, and cannot re-enter it again, except by a 
 
52 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 only one that has personality, consciousness, and 
 freedom. Ens in se et sihi. He does not exist 
 for another created being, or merely to be useful 
 to others. Whilst his almighty Creator says : 
 Ego sum qui sum, (I am who am) man says : Ego 
 sum, (I am.) It is his privilege and his duty to 
 make inferior creatures subservient to himself. 
 They have not an independent destiny; their 
 utility shows their destination ; they are made for 
 man. He must then impress on them his person- 
 ality, as the image of his Creator is impressed 
 upon him. This is true of each individual man, 
 for each one is an independent substance, and has 
 his own destiny to work out ; the kind or species 
 
 retrogression that would involve anarchy and perhaps barbarism/’ — 
 {^Progress and Poverty,, B. vi, C. I.) 
 
 “ Communism is not merely, nor chiefly a tenure of property, but 
 rather a form of government, for a corporation or even a precinct ; in 
 which the highest attainable perfection of human nature, is supposed 
 to be the chief object of the individual, and is established as the chief 
 object of the society.” — (R. J. Wright, Principia of Social Science,, p. 434.) 
 
 “It must ‘be a highly obeyed system of government, both in one’s 
 individual soul, and in the association.” — (Ibid. p. 435.) 
 
 ‘ The successful communities in every age of the world have in- 
 cluded nearly all the following principles: (i) that community-life is 
 to be sought as a means of perfection ; (2) that the government of them 
 is to be in the hands of good men ; (3) that the governors are supposed 
 to be saints, or to be leading lives of some sort of inspiration or 
 peculiar consecration.” — (Ibid. p. 437.) 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 53 
 
 IS fully represented in him. Therefore whilst, as 
 St. Thomas has it, other earthly beings act 
 specifically, man acts individually — (S. Thomas 
 Contra Gentes, L. Ill, cap. 113). If so, then he 
 must stamp his individuality on the beings which 
 have been created for him, or project himself, as 
 it were, on the exterior world. If this be accom- 
 plished there is between a man and that which 
 bears his stamp a. relation which can exist be- 
 tween no other two beings of the same order, 
 and every one who interferes with it, violates the 
 right which is inseparable from human personality. 
 This thought is grandly expressed by St Thomas 
 (2^ 2“® q. 66, art. i): 
 
 •‘An exterior object may be considered under 
 a twofold aspect: ist, in its nature, which is not 
 subject to the human, but only to the Divine 
 Power, whose beck all things obey. It may be 
 considered also in its utility, and thus man has, 
 by his very nature, a dominion over exterior ob- 
 jects ; for by his reason and will he can make 
 them useful to himself, as being created for his 
 sake ; for what is less perfect is made for that 
 which is more perfect, and from this law Aristotle 
 concludes, in the first book of Politics, chaper 5th, 
 that the possession of exterior things is natural 
 to man. But this natural dominion of man over 
 
54 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 the Other creatures belongs to liini on account of 
 his reason, by which^he is God’s image; and is 
 manifested in the very act of creation according 
 to the words of Genesis : ‘ Let us make man to 
 our image and likeness ; and let him have domin- 
 ion over the fishes of the sea, and fowls of the air, 
 and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every 
 creeping thing that moveth upon the earth.” 
 
 From this truth we reason as follows : 
 
 Wherever the perfect rational nature and the 
 perfect impress of the divine image are found 
 there also must be dominion over things earthly ; 
 but that nature and the divine likeness which ac- 
 companies it, exist in each individual man, hence 
 in each and every man, this dominion exists, at 
 least potentially^ if not actually. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 55 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SAME DEMONSTRATED BY INDUCTION. 
 
 When evolving the right of appropriation from 
 the end and duties of man, or from the special 
 privileges of a conscious being, which can project 
 its individuality on exterior objects, we have 
 applied to the doctrine of property the deductive 
 process ; let us now test it by the inductive 
 method, and see whether the facts give us some 
 tokens of a general law. 
 
 It seems, at first, somewhat strange that Jus- 
 tinian, should have said that the law of nature 
 obtains even among animals; whilst the jus 
 gentium, which is based on reason, applies to man 
 alone; but when we compare the first and second 
 titles of the Institutes, with the IXth book of 
 the Pandects, title ist, nn-i-2-3, we clearly discern 
 the true meaning. The Emperor does not con- 
 sider animals as responsible agents, but he holds 
 that when nature wishes to secure an end of 
 universal interest, it stamps its law on the heart 
 
OWNKKSIIIP AND 
 
 of man, and gives animals an inclination, which 
 makes up, to some extent, for the absence of 
 reason. This animal instinct becomes an index, 
 which may lead us to discover a general law. 
 
 “The rational proof which we have adduced to 
 show that nature has established the right of 
 property, is confirmed by a fact of instinct, which 
 is observable in the man as in the brute ; thus, in 
 both the one and the other, a feeling of natural 
 indignation springs up, when one attempts to 
 snatch from us what we hold in possession. Take 
 two little children who run a race for an apple. 
 The winner of the apple could well have borne 
 his loss, had he been beaten in swiftness by his 
 rival ; but with what indignation is he not carried 
 away, if the latter availing himself of superior 
 strength, strives to wrest the prize from his hands. 
 And how will not the mastiff growl, if one dare 
 to deprive him ot his favorite bone. Far be it 
 from me to attribute to a dog the idea of right, 
 he moves himself, or rather is moved by natural 
 instinct. But this instinct shows us that creative 
 Providence saw that peaceful possession of the 
 good occupied was necessary for the well being 
 of the animal, and hence it impressed upon the 
 very brute a certain natural respect, which not 
 unfrequently restrains the strongest in presence 
 of the weakest.” — (Taparelli d’Azeglio, Natural 
 Right, B. II, C. iv, n 403.) 
 
 We may add that the ant will fight for its hill, 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 57 
 
 the bee for its hive, the bird for its nest, the dog 
 for its kennel ; to every animal, its chosen abode 
 is a castle which stronger animals will fear to 
 invade. In man, this instinctive clinging to own- 
 ership becomes an inclination, sanctioned by 
 reason, and growing with human personality : 
 
 “ Man, thriftless at first, cares but little for the 
 ground w'hich yields nothing but wild berries. . . 
 . . . But he soon divides land, improves* it, and 
 strongly clings to his share. When people gather 
 their strength to wrest it from him, he blends his 
 energy with the corporate strength of his nation. 
 If the onslaught is committed within the city, he 
 appeals to a judge for redress. Thus as he de- 
 velops himiself, he grows fonder and fonder of his 
 own estate ; in a word, he becomes more and 
 more a proprietor.” — (A, Thiers, de la Propriete, 
 Vol I, p. 27). 
 
 In scanning nature, we have not only struck a 
 group of phenomena, we have met a general law. 
 But is that law a social as well as an individual 
 one ? Let us propose the question to a standard 
 authority, Mr. Cliffe Leslie : 
 
 “The term Natural has been indeed a source 
 of so much confusion and error in both the philos- 
 ophy of Law, and Political Economy, that it might 
 
 * The word ‘ improves ’ in not ih.that sentence, but in the context. 
 
58 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 be well to expel it altogether from the termi- 
 nology of both ; (we have cleared away the con- 
 fusion, with the help of Emperor Justinian,) but 
 it could not be more legitimately applied than in 
 the proposition that there is a natural movement, 
 as society advances, from common to separate 
 property in land and chattels. This movement 
 is perceptible even among the Slav, nations them- 
 selves, and is closely connected with the move- 
 ment from the status to contract, which Sir. H. 
 Maine has shown to be one of the principal 
 phases of civilization.” (Introduction toLaveleye, 
 P- I 3 -) 
 
 Let us hear W. Roscher, the founder and the 
 head of the historical school of political economy. 
 
 “The progress of civilization demands an ever 
 increasing fixity, and a more pronounced shaping 
 of landed property, in the interest of all who share 
 in this progress, and even of those who own no 
 landed property. Were there no property in 
 land, every one woulcf find it more difficult and 
 laborious to gratify his want of agricultural pro- 
 ducts, and the products themselves would be of 
 an inferior kind.” — (Political Economy, B. ist 
 Sect. 87, Translated by J. Lalor, Henry Holt & 
 Co., N. Y.) 
 
 We turn to Mr. de Laveleye, the principal 
 authority quoted by Mr. Henry George. 
 
 “The flourishing appearance of Bulgaria shows 
 
NATURAI, RIGHT. 
 
 59 
 
 decisively that the system (Patriarchal ownership) 
 is not antagonistic to good cultivation. And yet 
 this organization, in spite of many advantages, is 
 falling to ruin, and disappearing wherever it 
 comes into contact with modern ideas. The 
 reason is that these institutions are suited to the 
 stationary condition of a primitive age, but cannot 
 easily withstand the condition of a state of society, 
 in which men are striving to improve their own 
 lot as well as the political and social organization 
 under which they live.” 
 
 Well! We do not wish to be in a stationary 
 condition, and most Americans want to improve 
 their lot, as well as the social organization under 
 which they live. And so, venerable institution of 
 patriarchal ownership, we bid thee a long but 
 kindly farewell I 
 
60 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE RIGHT. 
 
 The destiny and duties of man, his exalted 
 rank, the instincts which betray nature’s handi- 
 craft, the laws which rule social evolution, have 
 made good the rights of ownership ; yet so far, 
 we have but a bare moral power, something like 
 an officer’s commission before he is appointed to 
 a command ; like the eligibility of a citizen, before 
 he has secured an election. Philosophers call it 
 an abstract right ; to clothe it with a concrete ex- 
 istence it needs something real to take hold of. 
 It may be held in abeyance, its exercise may be 
 checked, but it clings to its owner, ready to 
 spring into life at the bidding of human activity. 
 
 This distinction is as old as Aristotle, probably 
 much older, yet persons of superior ability, occa- 
 sionally lose sight of it, perchance because it is so 
 old. 
 
 Mr. Pastiat says boldly: “In the full force ut 
 the word, man is born a proprietor, etc.” If the 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 61 
 
 distinguished writer means that man has the 
 abstract right to become one, the proposition is 
 true, but he should not have used the expression 
 — “In the full force of the word,” If he means 
 that man when coming into this world, actually 
 owns something, outside of himself, then he runs 
 counter to the wise saying of Job : “ Naked came 
 
 I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I 
 return thither,” Mr. de Laveleye finds fault with 
 his learned friend, and chides him thus: “From 
 the words of Mr. Bastiat, it follows that unless 
 we condemn some persons to death, we must 
 recognize in all the right of property.” Certainly, 
 you could not take the right from them, without 
 quenching the vital spark, and you would not do 
 that. “Man,” continues Mr. Bastiat, “lives and 
 develops by appropriating certain objects. Appro- 
 priation is a natural, providential phenomenon, 
 essential to life ; and property is only appropria- 
 tion, converted into right by labor.” Mr. Bastiat 
 is substantially correct, because he mentions the 
 fact which gives ^the abstract right a concrete 
 existence. Yet the words converted into right are 
 objectionable. A fact is not, properly speaking, 
 converted into a right. The answer of Mr. de 
 
62 
 
 OWNEKSIIir AND 
 
 Laveleye is not valid. “If appropriation is essen- 
 tial to life, all should be able to appropriate a 
 portion of matter by labor.” Why not ? They 
 have certainly the right to do so, provided they 
 do not pounce upon the portion which another 
 has appropriated. If they cannot labor, their 
 right remains in abeyance ; but those who can 
 labor must support them. 
 
 A similar ambiguity makes the following posi- 
 tion of Mr. George very misleading : “(Nature) 
 makes no discriminations among men, but is to 
 all absolutely impartial. . . . All men to her, stand 
 upon an equal footing, and have equal rights.” 
 If this be understood of abstract rights, and of 
 nature considered in the species, it is perfectly 
 true ; but if it be extended to concrete and indi- 
 vidual rights, it is utterly incorrect. All men are 
 equal in so far as they have the same specific 
 nature, possess both body and spirit, come from 
 the same principle, have the same end, and are 
 subject to the same eternal law. But in every- 
 thing else, they are greatly unequal ; and nature 
 itself considered, not specifically, but individually, 
 is one of the causes of that inequality. 
 
 “Place, stripped of clothes, a landowner’s 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 63 
 
 among a dozen workhouse babies, and who that 
 you call in can tell the one from the other?” 
 Ten to one, midwives might. “Put the bodies of 
 a duke and a peasant on the dissecting table, and 
 bring if you can, the surgeon — who can tell which 
 is the duke, which is the peasant.” Many will be 
 able to do so. As a rule, nature that made the 
 duke spring from a nobleman, will have given 
 him more delicate fibres ; and as a compensation, 
 it will have given the peasant coarser but more 
 compact tissues. In other words, both are equal 
 as men, but unequal in their personal qualifica- 
 tions. Specific rights are equal, but individual 
 rights are unequal. 
 
64 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHAT CAN WE OWN? — OCCUPANCY VERSUS LABOR 
 
 INCREMENT. 
 
 As we have based the right of man on teleolo- 
 gical considerations and on nature itself, the same 
 order of thought shall determine what may be 
 occupied and possessed. Man must use exterior 
 objects to maintain his existence, support his 
 being, evolve his powers, and reach his end ; 
 then those things alone will be subject-matter for 
 ownership which can forward the fulfilment of 
 those duties. 
 
 Dominion implies subjection, then the beings 
 owned by man must be destined to man by their 
 very nature. In order that right may pass from 
 the abstract to the concrete state, man must be 
 active ; he must consume the objects appropriated, 
 or stamp upon them his own individuality ; those 
 objects, therefore, must be, either immediately 
 consumable, or capable of retaining the impress 
 of the owner. They must serve a purpose which 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 65 
 
 involves exclusiveness, consequently, they must 
 not be exhaustless and unlimited. Such are the 
 necessary characteristics of material objects which 
 can be appropriated. They must be useful to 
 man, or at least capable of affording pleasure. 
 If not immediately consumable, they must be fit 
 to bear the mark of individual ownership. They 
 must be seized upon, apprehended, and, in some 
 way, confined. They must be in limited quantity, 
 otherwise the use made by another could not be 
 an infringement of the owner’s right. Thus air 
 and water, when unconfined, cannot be owned by 
 anyone. However, if machinery be constructed 
 to supply them, the quantity thus supplied may 
 become subject to ownership. 
 
 We come now to the first act of appropriation, 
 the first title of lawful ownership, not the sec- 
 ondary or derived titles, which we do not consider 
 for the very obvious reason that their soundness 
 depends on the legitimacy of the primary ones. 
 Jurists admit two primary titles : Occupancy, 
 and accession or increment. 
 
 Occupancy is the act by which man takes pos- 
 session of an object which has no master, with 
 the intention clearly manifested, to retain it in his 
 
66 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 power. It is of three kinds, effective, legal or 
 Active, political. 
 
 The first consists in a change of the object 
 which gives it an usefulness or value which it had 
 not before. This occupancy evidently affixes to 
 the object the mark of the owner’s individuality, 
 and, according to the principles already devel- 
 oped, gives a title in virtue of the right of nature. 
 
 Legal occupancy consists in taking hold of the 
 object, with intention of retaining it, but without 
 at once imparting to it a new value. It holds its 
 validity partly from nature, since the occupier has 
 established a relation, which did not exist before, 
 but rather more ex condicto, as the State must 
 determine what amount of labor will secure that 
 title, and make it valid before the community. 
 Yet society cannot refuse to give it a legal exist- 
 ence, because, without it, improvements were 
 impossible. The state, as a rule, gives a condi- 
 tional title, which becomes perfect when occupancy 
 has become effective. 
 
 Political occupancy, is taking possession of a 
 country, to give it a social existence, a govern- 
 ment. It involves no property in the strict sense 
 of that word, and it depends for its validity on 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 67 
 
 international law, which is partly natural, and 
 partly positive. Some conditions must be ful- 
 filled by the power which takes possession of a 
 country, and until they are fulfilled the title is not 
 perfect. 
 
 A very interesting case of Political occupancy 
 was of late, submitted to the arbitration of Leo 
 XIII, and solved to the satisfaction of both con- 
 tending powers. 
 
 Here we must briefly dispose of an incidental 
 question : Which is the first title. Occupancy or 
 Labor? We answer that every kind of occu- 
 pancy involves labor. But labor does not neces- 
 sarily imply great exertion ; a very moderate 
 effort may be sufficient to perfect legal occupancy, 
 a great deal of labor may be needed to accom- 
 plish effective occupancy. In the social state, legal 
 occupancy must precede, because a man who 
 goes to work, must be protected whilst his work 
 is going on. Hence the first title, at least in the 
 social state, is legal occupancy , it is perfected by 
 complying with the conditions determined by the 
 state, which judges what amount of labor shall 
 be sufficient to create ownership. If we suppose 
 a man, as yet unprotected by social institutions, 
 
68 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 then ownership will begin when the ground is 
 first “tickled by the hoe,” and be perfected when 
 it shall have acquired a new value. 
 
 If we choose to abstract from the labor involved 
 in occupancy, and contrast occupancy with labor, 
 then legal, or, as the old jurists called it, Jic live 
 occupancy will give the first title, and effective 
 occupancy perfect it. Or, if we choose to express 
 the same truth in terms of labor, the first labor 
 expended begins the title, and labor carried far 
 enough to give the object a new value, makes the 
 title perfect. In civil society, as it is the province 
 of government to maintain justice and prevent 
 conflicts between citizens, it will be its duty to 
 frame laws, not in order to create a right which 
 is based on reason itself, but so to regulate its 
 application as to reduce the friction to a minimum, 
 and preserve the rights of every member of the 
 body politic. 
 
 The abstract right of appropriation comes from 
 nature itself — occupancy is the first fact which 
 gives it a concrete existence, and this first fact is 
 subject to the jus gentium, i. e. to natural law 
 interpreted by human reason — Society applies 
 the rights founded in nature, and regulates their 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 69 
 
 exercise ; so that the activity of one man may not 
 check unduly the activity of another. 
 
 Accession is the second of the titles which 
 legists have pi imary. It may be of three 
 
 kinds, natural, artificial, or mixed. 
 
 An increase in value which comes from the 
 concourse of population, and raises the rents, is 
 what Mr. George and others called unearned 
 increment. 
 
 It is evident that a natural increment belongs 
 to the owner of the object, for accidents follow 
 the substance. Artificial increment is the product 
 of labor ; if the owner has bestowed that labor 
 on his property, or has given a compensation to 
 the laborers for their exertions, nobodv can 
 dispute his title to the increased value. An in- 
 crement springing partly from nature’s own 
 activity, and partly from human labor, such for 
 instance as the increase of live-stock, evidently 
 partakes of the nature, both of the Natural and 
 of the Artificial increment, and is subject to the 
 same law. 
 
 Does this rule apply to the so-called unearned 
 increment ? Decidedly so. Why is a piece of 
 ground more in demand than another ? Because 
 
70 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 it is supposed to have a special utility, to afford ex- 
 ceptional opportunities for business, to save labor, 
 or increase profits. According to the principle, 
 this is an accident which ought to go to the 
 benefit of the owner ; just as the increased price 
 of the Whittington cat goes to her master, when 
 a rat-tormented country increases the demand for 
 felines, and thereby gives puss an accidental 
 value.' Said cat, according to Mr. George, goes 
 back in gold. Well done. Puss! 
 
 In fact, everything rises in value with the in- 
 crease of demand. 
 
 “ Every piece of land has been made more and 
 more valuable by the presence of population. 
 But so has every house that has been built on 
 the land. As population gathers about the house 
 and other houses are built up, every brick in 
 the first one — yea, and every stroke of labor 
 that went to make the brick, or put it in posi- 
 tion — is raised in value. In other words, there 
 is no such thing as value without society — two 
 persons at least — one who has something that 
 the other wants. In this respect, therefore, a 
 house and even the labor that builds a house, is 
 precisely like the land under it.” — (Edward Gor- 
 don Clark, in the North American Review, Jan., 
 1887.) 
 
 But the owner has done nothing to increase 
 
NATURAI. RIGHT. 
 
 71 
 
 the value of the land. Is this so very certain ? 
 Did he not at least select the ground with a view 
 to a probable improvement ? The sagacity which 
 is proved by the success of his investment, de- 
 serves some reward, like any other exercise of 
 human powers. Take away the incentive which 
 makes man exert his ingenuity and foresight to 
 the utmost, and you will have checked to some 
 extent the progress of society. 
 
 But did the commonwealth, as a corporate or- 
 ganization, do anything to raise that value? Not 
 in the least. Individuals who wish at any price 
 to secure that particular spot, or to live in that 
 particular neighborhood, have raised the price 
 unwillingly, and perhaps unwittingly. Will you 
 then distribute the surplus to the would-be set- 
 tlers, or compel the owners to sell ? • This would 
 be an unwarrantable interference. Will you con- 
 hscate the increment in favor of the community? 
 But lots of people will share in the proceeds, 
 v,/ithout having done anything whatever to raise 
 the price. This will be an unearned increment 
 indeed. 
 
 Moreover, if you confiscate the increment, you 
 must make up the losses. For, if the owners 
 
72 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 have not deserved the rise, neither did they de- 
 serve the fall. Thus by departing from the 
 obvious principle, that the accident follows the 
 substance, you have entangled yourself in a web 
 of yojir own weaving. 
 
 With regard to barter and exchange, Laissez 
 passer is commonly the best policy. When men will 
 find that in a certain neighborhood the prices are 
 too high, they will settle elsewhere, and the greedy 
 landowner will have defeated his own purpose. 
 
 It may happen that some m-en cling to unim- 
 proved real estate with blind tenacity. Some 
 cases of the kind will undoubtedly occur even in 
 a thrifty commonwealth, but self-interest will 
 prevent the exception from becoming the rule. 
 It were not wise to level legislation at exceptional 
 cases ; the interference of the state might do 
 more harm than good. Pas trop gouverner, do 
 not rule overmuch ! But should an extreme case 
 arise, should a pig-headed miser block the avenue 
 to wealth, and check social progress ; the state 
 might justly use its eminent domain and compel 
 him to "accept a fair compensation. This does 
 not destroy the right of ownership, but asserts 
 the higher claim of the commonwealth. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 73 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OWNERSHIP IN LAND. 
 
 Although very severe on capitalists, and bold 
 enough to mention them by name, Mr. George 
 does not follow Karl Marx in his war against 
 private ownership in capital. In fact he allows 
 us to own almost anything, but when we come to 
 land, he draws the line, and is emphatic in his 
 averments: “The leaders of modern thought 
 are too wise to trace the right of property in land 
 to Natural Law, they do not step beyond expe- 
 diency ; the very men who speak of the right of 
 occupancy do not believe in it, etc.” — Black 
 Hawk is smuggled in, followed by a tribe of 
 Maoris. Black Hawk speaketh as follows : 
 
 “The Great Spirit has told me that land is not 
 to be made property like other property. The 
 earth is our mother !” 
 
 As these noble savages are not particularly 
 careful of their mother, it will be enough to oppose 
 to them the authority of the learned pundits of 
 India : 
 
74 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 “The field belongs to him who has felled the 
 trees and cleared the land, as the deer belongs to 
 him who has first wounded it.” 
 
 But we would prefer allies, who could repre- 
 sent modern civilization. Let us see whether we 
 cannot find a few. 
 
 Professor Woolsey in his book on Political 
 Science speaks as follows : 
 
 “As the life, growth, health, the very existence 
 of the human race depend on the use, consump- 
 tion or retention of articles belonging to the 
 physical world, there is a necessity that many 
 things should be appropriated which serve for 
 food, clothing or shelter.” (p. 44). 
 
 “Labor and occupation of that which is without 
 an owner are the two primary sources of prop- 
 erty.”' (p. 45). 
 
 “In hunting, fishing, nomadic people, there is 
 no motive for separate property in land, unless it 
 be in that which is connected with the house, the 
 homestead proper or the garden. . . . Land begins 
 to be appropriated by individuals when agricul- 
 ture is the prevailing employment.” 
 
 “Assuming it to be made out, that there was 
 little or no individual property in the earliest 
 human societies, we do not reach the conclusion 
 that the land was thought to belong to nobody 
 . . . . the exclusiveness belonging to private 
 property, must once have inhered in communal 
 property also.” 
 
NATURAf, RIGHT. 
 
 75 
 
 Evidently we have here a demonstration based 
 on the natural evolution of the human race, and 
 therefore on human nature. But in order to 
 realize its cogency, the work itself must be read; 
 it will amply repay the student’s labor. 
 
 Prof. Kent. (Address to Senior Law class, 
 June 25th, 1885). 
 
 “The true basis of the right of individual 
 property is that only in this right has it been 
 found practicable to induce men in general to 
 labor and save to acquire wealth. And fixed and 
 exclusive possession of land is as necessary to its 
 improvement as to the production of personal 
 property. And all the wealth of the world has 
 been produced in reliance on the law of private 
 ownership. Those who have invested their 
 money in real estate are as much entitled to pro- 
 tection as any others, and the abolition of property 
 in one kind would be no more or less unjust than 
 its abolition in another.” 
 
 ■ Dr. A. Stockl, (Social Philosophy, and Philos- 
 ophy of Right, 2d Part,) after giving a complete 
 analysis of the concept of Domain, transient 
 (right of using), permanent (individual private 
 property), and collective (corporate property), 
 proves the lawfulness of ownership : first, from 
 the concept of order ; secondly, from the origin 
 
76 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 of value ; thirdly, from the need of an incentive 
 to sustain exertion ; fourthly, from the require- 
 ments of society ; fifthly, from the necessity of 
 avoiding- conflicts. He concludes that ownership 
 is just, founded on natural order and demanded 
 by it. Coming to land as subject to ownership, 
 he finds the first title in effective occupancy : 
 
 “Occupancy can become a valid title of acqui- 
 sition, under this condition only, that the object 
 held is suited or necessary to the maintenance of 
 an individual or a community, and the satisfaction 
 of their wants.” . . . “The occupier can take 
 possession of land as far as he is able to labor 
 and transform it, either by himself or by others, 
 so as to satisfy those wants.” — (Lehrbuch der 
 Philosophie, p. 566.) 
 
 It would be impossible to do justice to his mas- 
 ' terly treatment of the question by a short analy- 
 sis. The book was published at Mayence, Franz 
 Kirchheim, in 1881. 
 
 Mr. A. Thiers, president of the French Repub- 
 lic, has written a special work on property {La 
 Propriete). After showing how land-ownership 
 originated in labor, which gave land its economic 
 value, and how society could but sanction that 
 right, he sums up as follows : 
 
NATURAI, RIGHT. 
 
 77 
 
 “Man has a first ownership in his own self and 
 his inborn powers ; a second, less closely united 
 with his very being, but no less inviolable, in the 
 product of those powers. This product includes 
 all that is called earthly possessions, which society 
 is bound to warrant to him. For without that 
 warranted deed, there is no labor, without labor 
 no civilization, not even the necessaries of life, 
 nothing but wretchedness, high-handed robbery, 
 and barbarism.” — (La Propriete, C. V., p. 37.) 
 
 Prof. W. Roscher, of Leipsic, after proving the 
 right of property in general, observes that some- 
 thing more must be said to apply the demonstra- 
 tion to the ownership of land : 
 
 “A certain expenditure of both capital and 
 labor is necessary that land may be used produc- 
 tively, and in most instances this employment of 
 capital and labor is of long duration, irrevocable 
 in the nature of things, and the fruits of which 
 can be reaped only after some time has elapsed. 
 Now this co-operation of capital and labor is such 
 that no one would undertake to devote them to 
 the cultivation of the land, had he not the strong- 
 est assurance of possessing it.” 
 
 Dupont, the pupil and editor of Quesnay, in 
 his introduction to the famous Tableau Economi- 
 que of his master, expresses the same thoughts, 
 perhaps more forcibly : 
 
78 
 
 OWNEKSIIH' AND 
 
 “As soon as men, wlio owned some personal 
 or movable property, have made use of their 
 wealth to cultivate some part of that land, which 
 as yet belonged to nobody, and yielded nothing, 
 they become by natural right the owners of the 
 soil which they have tilled, and to which they 
 have imparted a value ; for that value which their 
 estate owes to cultivation, is the outcome of their 
 labor, of their industry, of their physical strength, 
 of their personality, of the outlay of that wealth 
 which was their own. To wrest that field from 
 them would be to rob them both of the capital 
 and of the labor, which they have spent in pre- 
 paring, or cultivating the ground ; this robbery 
 would be a violation of acknowledged ownership.” 
 
 These quotations are sufficient to prove that 
 the assertion of Mr. George is too sweeping. In 
 the Cyclopedia of Political Science, 3d vbl., page 
 383, the student will find interesting papers by- 
 Messrs. L. Faucher, L. Wolowski, and E. Levas- 
 seur. These distinguished economists, besides 
 upholding themselves the right of property in 
 land, bring forward numerous authorities, and 
 among others Portalis and Napoleon I. 
 
 We, beg leave to end these quotations with the 
 testimony of two philosophers, who are respec- 
 tively the heads of two opposite schools. Im- 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 79 
 
 manuel Kent in his Metaphysica Morum (Latin 
 translation of Gotlob Born, Leipsic, B. Schwick- 
 ert, 1796). Vol. iv, p. 583-596, traces back the 
 right of property, and in particular of land prop- 
 erty, to the physical fact of occupation. Occupa- 
 tion itself he justifies by the postulatum : 
 
 “A rule which accepted as a law, would cause 
 a thing subject to my free will to become res 
 nullius nobody’s property, would be contrary to 
 justice.” 
 
 From this postulatum he evolves the exclusive- 
 ness of ownership, 
 
 “This postulatum may be called a permissive 
 law of practical reason; giving us a power which 
 we could not evolve from the general concept of 
 jus taken alone ; namely, that of imposing on 
 others an obligation which would not otherwise 
 bind them, viz: the duty of abstaining from the 
 use of some material objects subject to our will, 
 because we have occupied them first. Reason 
 requires that it may have the validity of a prin- 
 ciple.” — (Chap, i, sec. 2, p. 384.) 
 
 Some persons may not object to have this 
 metaphysical deduction turned into plain English; 
 it comes to this : 
 
 In order to live and grow physically and 
 
OWNERSHIP AM) 
 
 80 
 
 morally I must take hold of many things that are 
 outside of me, and which as yet belong to no 
 one. Should a law make those things, which I 
 have taken when unclaimed, nobody s property^ 
 such a law would be clearly unjust. On the other 
 hand, from the sole idea of right in general, I 
 cannot draw the power of saying to others : 
 Hands off! I must then fall back on the principle 
 that a thing already belonging to me cannot go in 
 quest of a proprietor ; armed with it, I can say to 
 any claimant who may chance to step forward ; 
 Hold on ! I came in first ! 
 
 Locke is less metaphysical, but more accessible 
 to common mortals. After proving the right of 
 property in general, he comes to the land ques- 
 tion. 
 
 “But the chief matter of property being now 
 not the fruits of the earth . . . but the earth itself, 
 as that which takes in and carries with it all the 
 rest, I think it is plain, that property in that too 
 is acquired as the former. He (man) by his labor 
 does, as it were, inclose it from the common. 
 Nor will it invalidate his right, to say everybody 
 else has an equal right to it, and therefore he 
 cannot appropriate. . . . God and his reason com- 
 manded him to subdue the earth, i. e. improve it 
 for the bfMiefit of life, and therein lay out some- 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 81 
 
 thing upon it that was his own, his labor. He, 
 that in obedience to this command of God, 
 subdued, tilled and saved any part of it, thereby 
 annexed to it something that was his property, 
 which another had no title to, nor could without 
 injury take from him .” — {Of civil government, C. 
 V., on Property.) 
 
 To this reasoning of Locke, Mr. Henry George 
 would object, that: 
 
 “In every essential, land differs from those 
 things, which being the product of human labor, 
 are rightfully property. It is the creation of God ; 
 they are produced by man. It is fixed in quan- 
 tity : they may be increased illimitably. It exists 
 though generations come and go ; they, in a little 
 while, decay and pass again into the elements.” — 
 (Social Problems, chap, xix, p. 218.) 
 
 These antitheses clash with a sharp, clanking 
 ring, but as they do not spring from real antino- 
 mies, the shocks become harmless. Land is the 
 creation of God certainly, and so is everything 
 else. Man creates- absolutely nothing. He mod- 
 ifies with his labor, what God has created ; he 
 sets free forces which before were held in equi- 
 librium ; he causes new forms to spring into 
 existence, which matter had not yet evolved ; but 
 the power to evolve them lay dormant in nature ; 
 
82 
 
 OWNEKSIIH’ AND 
 
 to awaken that power, and start it into full activity 
 is indeed a noble achievement, but it is not 
 creation. What Mr. Henry George means is that 
 the share of labor is greater in industrial products 
 than in the raising and reaping of harvests. Sup- 
 pose that it were so, we would have a difference 
 in degree, not in kind. In both cases matter and 
 force are supplied by our great Maker, and labor 
 avails itself of both. 
 
 “ Earth is fixed in quantity ” and the products 
 of labor are limited. They are limited by the 
 material, which cannot be greater than the earth 
 from which it is drawn, unless we suppose that 
 the contents can be greater than the container. 
 They are limited by human energy, which is not 
 infinite. By fixed in quantity we must understand 
 actually measured or measurable. In this sense, 
 only, is it true that the earth itself is a fixed 
 quantity ; for if to the energies which it holds in 
 its bosom, we add human labor, the product defies 
 human calculation. In other words, the bulk of 
 the earth is a fixed quantity, but the productive- 
 ness of the earth is a variable one. It is true 
 however, at least we think so, that it is easier to 
 approximate the probable yield of the earth than 
 
NATUKAL RIGHT. 
 
 83 
 
 the output of industrial production ; but here 
 again we meet a difference in degree, not in kind. 
 
 “Earth exists though generations come and 
 go” — Yes, and so are gold and diamonds more 
 lasting than man, and yet Mr. George does not 
 oppose ownership either in diamonds or in gold. 
 In fact most of our earthly possessions can outlast 
 us ! Nothing sublunary will last forever — The 
 differences are real, not specific — Everything 
 which may be owned by man, differs from other 
 things equally destined to his use, and from those 
 differences spring various duties. The owner of 
 a ship, or of a tenement house, has duties which 
 are not common to the iron master, or the cotton 
 grower, and conversely ; yet all those gentlemen 
 have a perfect right to their property, even ac- 
 cordinar to Mr. Georgfe. When we wish to find 
 whether a particular object may be held in prop- 
 erty, we must examine whether it has the test 
 qualifications recognized by moralists. Whether 
 it is useful or at least agreeable, capable of re- 
 ceiving the impress of man, or at least of being 
 confined by its owner ; it must be limited, for 
 were it boundless the use made of it by another 
 man would not abridge the owner’s right. 
 
84 
 
 OWNERS nu' AND 
 
 Now, Land possesses these characteristics in 
 an eminent degree. It is not only useful but - 
 indispensable, it can receive the impress of man 
 so as to acquire, and permanently retain, an utility 
 and value which it may take a long time and 
 much labor to give it, but which it will retain 
 permanently, provided that succeeding genera- 
 tions do not allow the work of the preceding 
 ones to go to decay. Hence Professor Sidgwick 
 quoting Mr. Spencer, appropriately remarks : 
 
 “The reasoning used to prove that no amount 
 of labor bestowed by an individual upon a part 
 of the earth’s surface can nullify the right of 
 society to that part, might be similarly employed 
 to show that no one can, by the labor he expends 
 in catching or gathering supersede the just claims 
 of other men to the thing caught or gathered.” 
 
 Logically, denial of land ownership leads to a 
 denial of the right of ownership in capital. This, 
 in turn, leads inevitably to communism. It is the 
 special and eminent qualifications of land to be 
 ap{>ropriated, which explains why authors who 
 set about treating of property in general, almost 
 constantly refer to land property as an illustra- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. George emphatically asserts that man has 
 
NATUKAL RIGHT. 
 
 86 
 
 a right to the product of his labor, it must be 
 "his against the whole world.” How can he re- 
 tain the ownership of labor spent on land, if 
 land be taken away from him ? He has used land 
 just as others have used marble or iron. You 
 would not take away the block which a sculptor 
 has transformed into an almost living embodiment 
 of beauty. Why ? Because if he had the right 
 to make a statue, he had the right to use a 
 material which was not appropriated by another, 
 or buy that material from its owner. The case is 
 precisely the same, when a man has tilled unoc- 
 cupied land, or bought land from another. In 
 the former supposition, he has mixed his labor 
 with it, in the latter, he has purchased the title of 
 another. Labor cannot be severed from the land, 
 and it is precisely labor which gives it value. 
 " ’Tis labor that puts the greatest part of value 
 on land, without which it would scarcely be worth 
 anything.” — (Locke, quoted by McCulloch in the 
 British Cyclopedia, Art, Political Economy.) 
 
 The English philosopher considers that such 
 culture as the Indians bestow upon the earth 
 gives it a fertility scarcely equal to one thou- 
 sandth of that which the proper kind of labor 
 
86 
 
 OWNERSIIIl’ AND 
 
 would impart to it. And you would confiscate 
 that fertility, even the remaining thousandth, in 
 order to reach the ground value, which you assert 
 to be yours. • In such a transaction, where is 
 equity ? 
 
 Again, Mr. George grants the property of the 
 house but not that of the ground upon which it is 
 built. How to separate the two is a difficulty. 
 Hence the brilliant polemist has expressed a 
 regret that the land-owner could not be separated 
 from the house-owner. No regret could be of any 
 avail. We have heard of a man in the gospel, who 
 walked away with his own bed, but never of a man’ 
 who walked away with his house. True, modern 
 improvements enable a man to put his house on 
 wheels, but in many cases it would not pay. 
 
 “As a matter of fact, the value of land can 
 always be easily distinguished from the value of 
 improvements. ... It is estimated separately by 
 assessors. . . . When a fire occurs, and improve- 
 ments are destroyed, a clear and definite value 
 remains in the land ” — Yes, the market value, 
 which is partly due to improvements. The asses- 
 sors do not trouble their heads about the history 
 of the lot : whether the o-round has been made 
 
 o 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 87 
 
 up by bringing to the spot sand, stone or oyster- 
 shells ; whether anything has been contributed 
 by human industry, or the whole value is due to 
 public prosperity, is for them a matter of indiffer- 
 ence ; according to the law of the land, they base 
 their assessment on the market value, and there 
 is an end of subtleties. But you wish that your 
 theorem should bear translating “into terms of 
 Ethics,” and you admit that a man has a full right 
 to the produce of his labor ; you cannot settle the 
 case in that summary manner. In the same page 
 you say: “To attempt to separate all that the 
 human race has done, from what nature originally 
 provided, would be as absurd as impracticable.” 
 (^Progress and Poverty, Book viii, C. 4.) Here 
 we agree completely. Yes, that separation is 
 absurd, as well as impracticable. 
 
 But what shows at once how natural is the ex- 
 clusive ownership in land is the impossibility of 
 doing without it. If man does not own land indi- 
 vidually, the tribe or nation will own it exclu- 
 sively. Now if an individual wrongs mankind by 
 excluding other men, a nation wrongs other 
 nations by following the same course. Either 
 land belongs to the whole species, or it does not; 
 
88 
 
 OWNERS! I n> AND 
 
 if the former be true, then we can have no exclu- 
 sive ownership : exclusive ownership of a nation 
 makes the wrong national instead of individual ; 
 that’s all. If it does not belong- to the whole race 
 collectively, then any one, not debarred by pre- 
 existing rights, can appropriate. There is no 
 foundation whatever for the exclusive ownership 
 of a nation, as separated either from the collective 
 ownership of the race, or the individual ownership 
 of the citizen. If one has not the right to appro- 
 priate land exclusively, how many will it take to 
 make a full-fledged right? Would not their col- 
 lective ownership look very much like an addition 
 of zeroes ? 
 
 The inconsistency of admitting ownership in 
 capital and denying ownership in land, is made 
 glaring by the well marked divergence of the two 
 most gifted expounders of that theory. 
 
 Shall the landowners be compensated ? Com- 
 pensation or no compensation — that’s the ques- 
 tion. 
 
 They must be compensated, says Mr. Spencer 
 for “most of our present landowners are men 
 who have either mediately, or immediately given 
 for their estates equivalents in honestly earned 
 
KATUKAI. RIGHT. 
 
 89 
 
 money.” They shall not have a red copper, says 
 Mr. George, “because private property in land is 
 a bold, bare, enormous wrong.” 
 
 The reason of Mr. Spencer is good ; and, from 
 their common standpoint, that of Mr. George is 
 just as valid; for if private property in land is 
 piracy, like Captain Kidd’s nautical exploits, then 
 to compensate, is to take away the people’s 
 money to indemnify pirates. Of yore, when a 
 premise led to either of two conclusions, both of 
 which were inadmissible, the premise was thrown 
 out as worthless. But Hegelian logic has changed 
 all that. 
 
90 
 
 OWNEKSHIP AND 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE STATICS OF MR. SPENCER. 
 
 In the Social statics of Mr. Herbert Spencer, a 
 whole chapter, the ninth of the second part, is 
 devoted to a fierce onslaught on private ownership 
 in land. 
 
 It is lively in the extreme, charmingly written, 
 and as plausible as a paradox can be made by the 
 craft of a master. In fact, Mr. George takes it 
 for a demonstration. Reluctantly we must curtail 
 it, but we shall try to preserve the meaning, and 
 leave the argument unimpaired. 
 
 Mr. Spencer begins by laying down the funda- 
 mental principle : “ Given a race of beings having 
 like claims to pursue the objects of their desires, 
 given a world adapted to the gratification of those 
 desires — a world into which such beings are sim- 
 ilarly born, and it unavoidably follows that they 
 have equal rights to the use of this world.” 
 
 It looks like barbarism, to batter this beautiful 
 period with distinctions, but it must be done. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 91 
 
 In the supposition of the writer, it is clear that 
 all have the same abstract and specific rights, but 
 when individual activity, and other accidental 
 causes come into play, that beautiful equality 
 soon disappears. 
 
 Let a kind-hearted man invite a crowd of boys 
 to storm an apple tree laden with luscious fruit. 
 All at first have the same right, but soon the 
 position changes. The nimblest has his pick and 
 choice. All right ; if he has not taken an unfair 
 advantage of his playmates. The last will have 
 to pluck what others have left him ; it is his mis- 
 fortune. If there has been no tripping, no pulling, 
 no pushing, no fighting, a thing, alas, very unlikely 
 among boys — they grab as well as their elders — 
 each one will soon have appropriated what he 
 can, without inflicting any wrong on the others. 
 Equality will remain an abstraction ; practically it 
 has become a thing of the past. 
 
 “ Each of them ” — of the beings having like 
 claims — “is free to use the earth for the satisfac- 
 tion of his wants.” 
 
 “ Equity, therefore, does not permit property 
 in land.” 
 
 Alas ! one of the premises is wanting, and the 
 
<^2 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 Other will split if you press upon it ; the argument 
 is pretty, but it will not stand on its legs. A prop 
 is at hand. “ For if one portion of the earth may 
 become the possession of an individual . . . o//ier 
 portions . . . may be so held ; and eventually ^/le 
 whole." Excepting roads, markets, public squares, 
 etc., etc., which necessity itself would save from 
 exclusive occupation. Why ! if the whole earth 
 were rented out, as Mr. Spencer wants, instead 
 of being owned, as a part of it is now, both the 
 inconvenience and its natural remedy would be 
 iust the same. 
 
 Absolute necessity would prevent men from 
 inclosing the whole ground, and blocking the 
 highways. But if you suppose that some lunatics 
 would insist on occupying the thoroughfares, the 
 duty of the civil power would be, as it is now, to 
 remove the obstructions. 
 
 With this obvious reservation, we wish the 
 whole world were occupied, then the earth would 
 be mantled in flowers and fruits, and hymns of 
 praise would rise heavenward from all the parts 
 of our planet. 
 
 But we are now threatened with a dilemma ; 
 hap]>ily it turns out to be an unicorn. It may be 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 93 
 
 summed up as follows • If die whole earth were 
 occupied by private individuals, all but the owners 
 would be trespassers — should this be the case, 
 there would be an end of equality and of all hu- 
 man rights, the right to live included. Even if 
 the whole earth were occupied, provided it were 
 done without trespassing either against divine or 
 against human law, others besides land-owners 
 would have a full right to live on this planet. For 
 in occupying the ground, men would be compelled 
 both by law and by necessity itself, to let others 
 move about, and attend to their respective avo- 
 cations. 
 
 Are people in the cities trespassers when they 
 do not own a lot? As Mr. George truly ob- 
 serves, progress leads to inter-dependence. 
 Were the whole earth occupied, there would be 
 a greater incentive to use improved agriculture, 
 and a greater necessity to resort to a division of 
 labor. Farmers would need mechanics, and 
 mechanics would need farmers, just as they do 
 now, and more than they do now. Dwellings for 
 workmen, and markets for the exchange of pro- 
 ducts, would be more than ever indispensable: 
 so that self-interest, let alone justice, would compel 
 
M 
 
 OWNERSHIl’ AND 
 
 men to live and let live. Whether the ground be 
 owned or rented does not alter the case in the 
 least. If it be rented, a sufficient amount must 
 be reserved for the use of the public ; if occu- 
 pancy is yet free, then either the common sense 
 of the occupiers, or the public power must 
 preserve untouched what is necessary for the 
 public good. If an error has been committed, 
 and ground that the community cannot do without, 
 has been either leased or occupied, then a com- 
 pensation must be given, and the tenant or owner 
 must vacate the premises. 
 
 Mr. Spencer goes on : “ It can never be pre- 
 
 tended that the existing titles to such property 
 are legitimate — violence, fraud, the prerogative 
 of force, the claims of superior cunning — these 
 are the sources to which those titles may be 
 traced.” Too sweeping ! It may be perfectl\‘ 
 true of Ireland that the deeds “were written with 
 the sword rather than with the pen,” but Mr. 
 .Spencer himself will soon mention a title written 
 with the plough. In this country at least, most 
 of the original titles were written in furrows, and 
 sanctioned by law. 
 
 “ I)Ut 'I'ime, say sonie, is a great legalizer. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 9o 
 
 How long does it take for what was originally a 
 ivrong to grow into a right?" No length of time 
 can work such a change as that, but immemorial 
 possession may render it extremely difficult, or 
 even impossible, to prove that an assumed right 
 grew out of a wrong. A heavy burden of proof 
 is thrown upon the man who questions a long- 
 standing possession ; hence the legal axiom that: 
 Possession is nine points of the law. This is in 
 accordance with equity as well as with expe- 
 diency. 
 
 “The right of mankind at large to the earth’s 
 surface is still valid ; all deeds, customs, and laws 
 notwithstanding.” We were under the impression 
 that the earth’s surface was possessed by men, at 
 least wherever they were strong enough to 
 conquer wild beasts. We know of no deed, 
 custom, or law to the contrary. Does Mr. Spen- 
 cer mean that each and every man, that the 
 whole race both collectively and distributively 
 must own each and every inch of ground ? Then 
 it would be a matter of curiosity to see the 
 strange instrument in which such an entail is 
 recorded. It would be merely a matter of 
 curiosity, because deeds which involve an evident 
 
96 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 impossibility, are justly considered as null and 
 void. 
 
 Mr. Spencer brings to the rescue a Cosmopolite 
 — an elegant appellation — common people would 
 use the word tramp. 
 
 “Hallo, you sir,” cries the cosmopolite to some 
 backwoodsman, smoking at the door of his 
 shanty, “ by what authority do you take possession 
 of these acres, that you have cleared ?” Reluc- 
 tantly, we must shorten the dialogue. .Settler — 
 “ I squatted there. I have cut down the wood 
 and ploughed and cropped the ground.” Cos. — 
 “Ay, so you all say” — Tramps could not say that 
 much — “ Now I want to understand how, by 
 exterminating one set of plants, and making the 
 soil bear another in their place, you have consti- 
 tuted yourself lord of the soil for all the succeeding 
 time.” 
 
 .Settler — “ I have caused the earth to bring 
 forth things good for food — things that help to 
 give life and happiness.” Poor squatter, he does 
 not know that tramps cannot acknowledge a right 
 founded either on labor or on a new utility or 
 value imparted by labor. Why ! labor is just the 
 sort of thing the gaunt fraternity objects to. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 97 
 
 Cos — “Stin you have not shown why such a 
 
 process makes the portion of earth, you have so 
 
 modified, yours. By what magic have these acts 
 
 made you sole owner of that vast mass of matter, 
 
 having for its base the surface of your estate, 
 
 and for its apex the centre of the globe.” I 
 
 wonder whether that foolish squatter had claimed 
 
 a spheroidal sector? People who have not gone 
 
 to school claim only as much of that mass of 
 
 matter, as they need for cultivation. As miners 
 
 might cause the foundation of the field to be 
 
 somewhat shaky, in many countries, positive law 
 
 gives the squatter the first claim to the ore under 
 
 the field, or obliges those who wish to dig it out 
 
 to obtain his consent, but neither the squatter, 
 
 nor the miner has the slightest inclination to claim 
 * 
 
 the point at the centre of the earth. 
 
 Settler. — “If it isn’t mine, whose is it? I have 
 dispossessed nobody. When I crossed the Miss- 
 issippi yonder, I found nothing but the silent 
 woods. If some one else had settled here, and 
 made this clearing, he would have had as good a 
 right to the location, as I have.” Had our 
 squatter studied Kant he could have answered 
 that he had projected his individuality on that 
 
98 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 field, and that he fell back on the postulatum : 
 That a law by which a thing subject to his free 
 action should be made res nullms would be a very 
 unjust law. But our friend has not read Kant, 
 he goes on boldly, and almost puts his foot in it. 
 “Whilst they were unreclaimed, these lands 
 belonged to all men!” Our friend might have 
 avoided that slip by committing to memory the 
 following words of Prof. Woolsey: “If the 
 world was common, it was in the sense of being 
 unappropriated, and not in the sense of being 
 held in joint property .” — {Social Science, p. 49.) 
 
 But Cos. is not the man to let it pass ; not he ! 
 “You say truly, when you say that ‘whilst they 
 were unreclaimed they belong to all men.’ And it 
 is my duty (Oh I his duty I) to tell you that they 
 belong to all men still ; and that your improve- 
 ments cannot vitiate the claim of all men.” 
 Tramps included? “Let me put you a case. . . . 
 Suppose now that in the course of your wander- 
 ings, you come upon an empty house — you paint 
 and paper and whitewash. On some fatal day a 
 stranger is announced who turns out to be the 
 heir to whom this house has been bequeathed. 
 Do they (your improvements) quash the title of 
 the original claimant? ” 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 99 
 
 Settler. — “ No.” 
 
 Cos. — “Neither do your pioneer operations 
 give you a valid title to this land.” 
 
 Here the poor settler is nonplussed ; he merely 
 begs for the value of his improvements, and the 
 request is granted. In practice the dialogue 
 would have ended differently. The cosmopolite 
 would have asked for his dinner, promising to 
 pay for it, by working on the snake fence ; and, 
 after being fed by the hospitable farmer, would 
 have skipped without doing a stroke of work. 
 Our settler might have denied the parity. He 
 could have said that the whole human kind being 
 the owner, according to the tramp, he could keep 
 his property until the whole human kind showed 
 cause why it should dispossess an honest man 
 and deprive him of the fruits of his labor. He 
 might have denied point blank that the earth 
 was the joint property of all men. He would 
 have been supported by the consent, morally 
 unanimous, of philosophers, in averring that the 
 community of ownership, which had been assumed 
 as the primitive condition of mankind, was nega- 
 tive, not positive. In other words, that Providence 
 had given land to men in general without deter- 
 
100 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 mining what should be the share of each one ; 
 leaving it to reason to frame the conditions, and the 
 terms of the land tenure. Or he could have an- 
 swered more simply, that what belongs to every- 
 body belongs to nobody. He may have been 
 taken aback by the sophistry of the stranger, he 
 may not have known what elementary school- 
 books had said on the subject; but Mr. Spencer, 
 who knew all this, did not treat him fairly when 
 he left him speechless in presence of the claims 
 of a worthless, wandering cosmopolite. 
 
 Mr. Spencer fancies that he has solved the 
 principal difficulties, when he has transformed the 
 landlords into tenants. But to whom should those 
 tenants pay the rent? To the State? But the 
 State has no more right than they have ; nay, 
 much less ; the State has spent no labor on that 
 field ; the pioneer has bedewed it with the sweat 
 of his brow. But, for the sake of argument, grant 
 some sort of ownership to that moral being the 
 State, since the land is the joint property of the 
 whole human race, the State, at best, is but one 
 of the partners of a joint-stock company. Since 
 when can one of the partners rent out the com- 
 pany’s property without the knowledge and con- 
 sent of the others ? 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 101 
 
 The State does worse, it compounds a felony. 
 The pioneers have robbed mankind of its prop- 
 erty, the State comes and says : “You are guilty, 
 this is evident, but if you put the rent in my 
 pocket, you can keep what you have taken ; I 
 shall protect you against the world ! ” 
 
 And when the State shall have rented out all 
 the available lands, compounded all the felonies, 
 what will remain for the disinherited? Yes, 
 something will remain, the platonic satisfaction 
 of knowing that they are virhtally the joint- 
 owners of the whole surface of the elobe. 
 
 We beg leave to refer the reader to the book 
 of Prof. Woolsey on Social Science, for an able 
 refutation of this remarkable chapter. To us it 
 is a choice bit of English, and a clever satire on 
 tramps. 
 
102 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 r 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ABSOLUTE, OR NOT ABSOLUTE? 
 
 According to Mr. Spencer, if men have a right 
 to make the soil private property, such a right is 
 absolute, sacred, not on any pretence to be 
 violated — of course he denies the right altogether, 
 and this absolute character, is one of the reasons 
 of his denial. “After all,” says the eminent 
 English writer, “nobody implicitly believes in land- 
 lordism. We hear of estates being held under 
 the Kings, that is, the State. Moreover we daily 
 deny landlordism by our legislation. Is a canal, 
 a railway, a turnpike road to be made ? we do 
 not scruple to seize as many acres as may be 
 requisite ; allowing the holders compensation for 
 the capital invested, etc.” — Why that compensa- 
 tion ? If we do not believe individual men to be the 
 true owners of those acres why do we pay them for 
 a thing that does not belong to them ? This is a 
 strange way of proving that we do not believe in 
 their ownership — Oh, but they have spent money 
 
NATURAI, RIGHT. 
 
 103 
 
 on those acres — This was their own lookout, they 
 should not have spent money on other people’s 
 property. If the facts mentioned by Mr. Spencer 
 prove anything, they prove just the reverse of 
 his proposition. If public good requires the use 
 of a private citizen’s property, his own. right must 
 yield to the social right, but if society can return 
 an equivalent, it is bound to do so ; (always in 
 the supposition that it pays with the people’s 
 money for property justly claimed by the owner) 
 for in the moral as well as in the physical order, 
 forces may hold one another in equilibrium, the 
 greater may overcome the smaller, motion may be 
 modified in direction or intensity, but as long as 
 the sources of power are at work, the powers 
 themselves retain their energy. We know but 
 one right that knows of no check, the right of 
 advancing in moral perfection ; this right can 
 never conflict ; and, what is more, it can never be 
 abused, for as the old masters have it : A moral 
 virtue is a good quality of the soul which makes 
 the life of man righteous, and cannot be vitiated by 
 abuse. 
 
 Does the great philosopher tell us why private 
 land ownership must be absolute or cease to 
 
104 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 exist? Not at all, but in place of the much 
 needed explanation, he supplies us with a dilemma 
 (those hoimecl arguments are quite to his liking): 
 
 “Either men have a right to make the soil 
 private property, or they have not. If men have 
 not such a right, we are at once delivered from 
 the several predicaments already pointed out.” 
 (We have already noticed those predicaments.) 
 “ If they have such a* right, then is that right 
 absolute.” The first horn being hollow would 
 snap in our hands, so we take hold of the second, 
 but rudely tear off the conclusion which is left 
 hanging upon it. We say men have such a right, 
 but it is not absolute. 
 
 Even natural rights are subject to limitations. 
 
 Nature itself prompts a musical man to pour 
 forth his soul in musical strains, and yet, should 
 the owner of a hand organ insist on striking up 
 Hail Columbia, close to the stand from which a 
 speaker addresses his friends and countrymen on 
 some vital issue, say the choice of a mayor for 
 the Empire City, the poor artist would fare badly, 
 l.ittle would it boot him to insist that he has just 
 as much right to that particular spot as any other 
 denizen of Gotham, that his music is just as pa- 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 105 
 
 triotic as the speech itself, etc., etc., he would 
 soon learn that private claims must yield to the 
 claims of society, that mere convenience must 
 give way before necessity, and that pleasure must 
 yield to business. He had reasoned thus : “Either 
 a man has the right of turning the crank of a 
 hand-organ, or he has not. If he has not, then 
 his liberty is abridged ; if he has the right, then 
 that right is absolute.” Such was his reasoning, 
 but the poor man had misinterpreted the Amer- 
 ican Constitution. 
 
 When we say that the right of ownership is 
 absolute, if we mean that no man or body of men 
 standing on no better ground than that of mere 
 expediency or self-interest can lawfully advance 
 a counter claim, we can say in that narrow sense 
 that it is absolute. But if we mean that it can 
 hold in abeyance the Dominion of God, the Emi- 
 nent Domain of the State, or the claim of extreme 
 necessity pressed by a fellowman, then we put on 
 the right of ownership a strain that human liberty 
 itself could not bear, for even human liberty must 
 yield to a superior moral power. 
 
 To discuss the whole question of the conflicts 
 of rights would require a special work of vast 
 
106 
 
 OWNERSinr AND 
 
 proportions ; for our purpose it will be enough 
 to sum up the main conclusions that bear on the 
 present issue. 
 
 The supreme dominion of God limits the own- 
 ership of man. None can acquire property in 
 defiance of Divine Law, of Moral Principles or of 
 a just law enacted by the civil power. 
 
 In the use of his property, man must bear in 
 mind that the right is derived from the right of 
 God. Hence he can not avail himself of it to 
 defeat the purposes for which it has been granted, 
 nor shirk the special duties entailed by the very' 
 nature of the property held. 
 
 A constant, all-absorbing, endless pursuit of 
 wealth, not on account of any good to be accom- 
 plished, but simply for the sake of hoarding up 
 
 wealth, is at variance with the moral order. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 With regard to the State, every citizen must 
 respect Eminent Domain ; that is, the right in- 
 herent in the supreme power of civil society to 
 use the property of its members, when it is indis- 
 pensable for the Being or Well-being of the 
 Commonwealth; with the understanding, however, 
 that a suitable compensation be given, whenever 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 lOT 
 
 public burdens would otherwise fall unequally on 
 the various units of the body politic. 
 
 Hence no citizen can lawfully obstruct the ave- 
 nues to public prosperity, or avoid bearing his 
 share of public burdens, all the claims of private 
 ownership notwithstanding. 
 
 With regard to his brother-men, the owner is 
 bound to remember that the claims of charity 
 must be met, and that, in the case of extreme 
 necessity, no right whatever can free him from 
 the duty of relieving the wants of his neighbor. 
 
 But if ownership is so hedged about, would it 
 not be more correct to substitute the word 
 Usufruct? Unhesitatingly we return a negative 
 answer. 
 
 It is true that man’s ownership contrasted with 
 the perfect and essential dominion of God, is 
 nothing but usiifruct ; and when considering the 
 subordinate relations of man who receives all he 
 has, even his very being, from his Maker, great 
 writers have applied that word to the derived 
 and dependent ownership of man, especially when 
 speaking of large hoards of gold and silver. 
 
 But if we compare proprietorship with other 
 human rights, the term usufruct is misleading. 
 
108 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 There are several essential differences between 
 Usufruct and Property. Usufruct implies a right 
 to the use or utility an object; ownership, to 
 the object itself. Usufruct is revocable, owner- 
 ship is not. The latter may indeed be held in 
 abeyance by a superior moral power, but not by 
 any other human ownership. The right of usu- 
 fruct may be traced back to the grantor, the right 
 of ownership clings to the proprietor, back of him 
 it reaches none but the great Lord and Master of 
 all. Usufruct does not imply the power of selling 
 the object, or disposing of it. Free disposal is 
 essential to ownership. It is better, therefore, 
 not to use the two words indiscriminately. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 109 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CAN THE STATE GRANT A DEED? 
 
 No ! says Mr. George, emphatically. “The 
 institution of public debts, like the institution of 
 private property in land, rests upon the prepos- 
 terous assumption that one generation' may bind 
 another generation. If a man were to come to 
 me and say, ‘here is a promissory note which 
 your great-grandfather gave to my great-grand- 
 father, and which you will oblige me by paying.’ 
 I would laugh at him, and tell him that if he wanted 
 to collect his note, he had better hunt up the man 
 who made it.” 
 
 “Though the sovereign people of the State of 
 New York consent to the landed possessions of 
 the Astors, the puniest infant that comes wailing 
 into the world in the squalidest room of the most 
 miserable tenement house, becomes at that 
 moment seized of an equal right with the million- 
 aires. And it is robbed if the right be denied.” 
 
 “ Although the whole people of the earth in 
 one generation, were to unite, they could no more 
 sell title to land against the next generation, than 
 they could sell that generation.” 
 
110 
 
 OWNERS! I II' AND 
 
 These are strong sayings, but Mr. George is 
 consistent. If private property in land is bare, 
 bold robbery, then State ownership cannot be 
 anything else, for it is equally inconsistent with 
 the joint-ownership of the puniest baby that 
 comes into this world, and the consent of the 
 whole world could not make it right. But the 
 principle will bear another conclusion. If the 
 State has no exclusive ownership in land, it can- 
 not grant a lease any more than it can sell, for 
 nobody can lease anybody else’s property. 
 
 These conclusions resemble very much a 
 demonstration ab absurdis, for they follow from 
 the premises, and yet common sense refuses to 
 admit them. “The American people have failed 
 to see the essential injustice of private property 
 in Land,” says Mr. George. Of course they 
 have, and so have other civilized nations. “ To 
 affirm that man can rightfully claim exclusive 
 ownership in his own labor, when embodied in 
 material things, is to deny that any one can right- 
 fully claim exclusive ownership in Land.” 
 
 The civilized world has drawn a very different 
 conclusion. If a man can claim exclusive owner- 
 .ship in his own labor when embodied in material 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 Hi 
 
 things, then when it is embodied in land, man can 
 claim exclusive ownership in land. Such has 
 been the conclusion of Americans as well as of 
 other people, and candidly that conclusion is more 
 legitimate than the opposite one, which is drawn 
 by Mr. George. 
 
 Indeed, we cannot help concluding as common 
 folks do, unless we maintain the preposterous as- 
 sertion, that we may embody our labor in the 
 wood, coal, marble, gold, or diamond, to which 
 our labor gives value, but cannot embody it in 
 land which owes to the same labor its produc- 
 tiveness. 
 
 But enough on the question of Natural Law ; 
 we must now proceed directly to prove that the 
 State, though it does not create ownership, must 
 needs sanction it and regulate its exercise. 
 
 Among- the functions of the government, none 
 are more important than the preservation of order, 
 peace and security. These the State could not 
 guard safely were it not armed with the power to 
 decide the questions which Natural ‘ Law may 
 have left unsettled. Nature indeed has been 
 careful to engrave in the heart of man the first 
 moral principles, and to shed a powerful light on 
 
112 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 the immediate consequences of those principles, 
 but it has left many remote conclusions and prac- 
 tical problems to be worked out by human reason. 
 We can draw from nature both the right of ap- 
 propriation, and the validity of effective occupancy 
 as a title. But what acts will make occupancy 
 legal or valid before the community? What 
 amount of labor will transform legal into effective 
 occupancy? What instrument must be held by 
 the owner, in order to prove that he has a perfect 
 title ? These are questions which human wisdom 
 must decide. But when men have not a self- 
 evident rule to go by, or when passions and self- 
 interest warp their minds, they arrive at conflicting 
 results, which translated into facts must disturb, 
 and at times, convulse the state. It is therefore 
 the province of the government to give the 
 citizens clear, practical rules for the guidance of 
 social enterprise. The supreme power must as- 
 sert itself, and its chief prerogatives must come 
 into play. The Legislative power must frame the 
 rules of action, state what acts may claim a pro- 
 visional title, what amount of labor will perfect it, 
 what forms will make it valid before the commu- 
 nity. The owner cannot at the same time claim 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 113 
 
 State protection and reject State control. The 
 executive power must carry out and enforce the 
 law, and the Judiciary take cognizance of real or 
 alleged violations. Should the State do less than 
 this, it would prove either recreant to its trust, or 
 powerless to perform its functions. 
 
 But when the title is granted and made perfect, 
 can the State annul it at will ? By no means. 
 As it did not create the right, it cannot abolish it. 
 Forms, of course, it may modify. It may even 
 change the terms of land tenure, provided that in 
 doing so it does not curtail vested rights, without 
 the holder’s consent. 
 
 Mr. George insists on the changes which land 
 tenure has undergone ; but he seems to forget : 
 1st, That exclusiveness is discernible in tribal, or 
 patriarchal, as well as in individual ownership ; 
 2nd, That the progress has been invariably 
 towards a greater fixity of tenure, and 3d, “That 
 there is a natural movement as society advances, 
 from common, to separate property in land and 
 chattels,” (W. Roscher, Pol. Econ.) and that con- 
 sequently, advancing civilization instead of im- 
 pairing vested rights, has given them greater 
 strength and permanency. 
 
114 
 
 OWNKKSIIII’ AND 
 
 Mr. George assails the right of governmciil ; 
 to grant deeds, on the ground that one generation 
 cannot bind another. To be defensible the 
 proposition must be qualified as follows, zcnless 
 the one be bound to the other by moral, or political 
 lies. When successive generations belong to the 
 same body politic, they preserve the same cor- 
 porate existence, just as the human body remains 
 substantially the same, though every particle of 
 matter be renewed within a short span of years. 
 In society it would be as difficult to state when 
 one generation ends and another begins, as it 
 would be to time the birth of successive genera- 
 tions of white and red corpuscles in the human 
 blood. Were not nations to preserve their 
 identity through successive generations, what 
 would become of treaties ? They would not be 
 worth the parchment they are written on ; con- 
 tracts would lose their binding power, and 
 International Law would be nothing but an empty 
 bawble. 
 
 Mr. George tells us that he would refer the 
 creditor of his great-grandfather to that revered 
 gentleman himself. We surely know better than 
 that. Should an I. O. U. duly signed by the 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 115 
 
 progenitor of Mr. George be held by some one 
 in the city, the distinguished publicist would have 
 no rest until he had purchased the document at 
 its face value. Nay, he would insist on paying 
 interest at the legal rate. We have known this 
 very thing to be done by a friend of ours, a 
 banker who certainly was no fool; que voulez- 
 vous! people praised him for it! Mr. George 
 himself would do no better. Perfectly aware that 
 the statute of limitation has barred the claim of 
 his great-grandfather’s creditor, if the unlucky- 
 note represented an honest debt, v/hich, owing to 
 untoward circumstances, had remained unpaid, 
 his keen sense of family dignity, would make him 
 fret until the tiny bit of paper had been duly 
 honored. 
 
 If society, with the consent of the persons 
 interested, may make or modify the terms of the 
 land tenure, could we not admit that a new 
 society, just in the period of formation, or a 
 political organization in which all the land-owners 
 would agree, might revert to the plan of joint- 
 ownership ? Mr. George believes that this 
 consent could be secured without much difficulty. 
 “To fight it (nationalization of land) would be as 
 
116 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 if a dog with a tin-kettle tied to his tail, should 
 snap at the hand that offered to free him.” — 
 {Land Question, C. XIV.) But dogs would do it 
 in a moment. As for men, most of them consider 
 the tin-kettle as highly ornamental. Land-owners 
 might turn on the kind-hearted socialist, just as 
 travelers do on the no less benevolent highway- 
 man, who wants to save them the trouble of 
 carrying a heavy load of gold dust. But sup- 
 pose the consent given, unless such a society 
 were under very exceptional circumstances, it 
 would act in defiance, not of an imperative, but 
 of a dh'ective mandate of reason — nahirce sua- 
 dentis. 
 
 Such is the conclusion of Aristotle after an 
 exhaustive examination of the communistic dream 
 of Plato (with Plato it always remained a mere 
 dream). We have already mentioned the objec- 
 tions of St. Thomas against collective ownership; 
 his doctrine is admitted by very nearly all the 
 •Schoolmen, we might say all, for two or three 
 oddities may be neglected. Modern Economists, 
 from different premises, have reached the conclu- 
 sion which both philosophers and theologians 
 had adopted before them. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 117 
 
 “Many socialists,” says W. Roscher, “have 
 proposed to make the State sole proprietor of the 
 soil, sometimes adding the condition that the 
 previous private owners should be compensated 
 in capital, when it would be at least supposable 
 that private capital might be enticed to cultivate 
 it, if long and sure leases of it were made. This 
 would be a good-demesne husbandry, extending 
 over the whole country. We need only glance 
 at those kingdoms in which something analogous 
 is to be found, especially in the despotisms of the 
 East, to divine that such a system does not suffice 
 to insure the real productiveness of a nation’s 
 economy.” — (Polit. Ec., Sec. 88.) 
 
 Mr. Thiers makes precisely the same state- 
 ments. We heard of late an unexpected 
 confirmation from the lips of a missionary coming 
 from Zulu-land. There, the system advocated, is 
 the law of the State. People will try to get out 
 of the land all they can during the time of their 
 lease, but nobody will dig a well or plant a tree. 
 Agriculture is unproductive, wasteful and sta- 
 tionary. 
 
 Orthodox English Economists, i. e. those who 
 follow Adam Smith and Ricardo, agree with 
 Roscher and Thiers. 
 
 “Is the expropriation of landlords a measure 
 
118 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 economically sound,” says Prof. SIdgwick (in the 
 Contemporary Review, Nov. 1886) “We turn to 
 the orthodox economists, who answer almost 
 unanimously that it is not ; that, not to speak of 
 the financial difficulty of arranging compensation, 
 the business of owning and letting land is, on 
 various grounds, not adapted for government 
 management ; and that a decidedly greater 
 quantum of utility is likely to be obtained from 
 land, under the stimulus given by complete 
 ownership, than could be obtained under a system 
 of leasehold tenure.” In a note the learned 
 professor adds: “Mr. Mill is, so far as I know, 
 the only important exception ; and his orthodoxy 
 on questions of this kind, is somewhat dubious.” 
 Very dubious indeed, for we have a letter of his, 
 addressed to Mr. de- Laveleye, and dated, 
 Avignon, Nov. 17th, 1872, in which the following 
 passage occurs. We translate literally from the 
 original French. 
 
 “ I deem it undeniable that the reforms which 
 must be made in the institution of property con- 
 sist chiefly in organizing some form of collective 
 ownership to compete with individual property. 
 There remains the problem of managing those 
 
NATURAI, RIGHT. 
 
 119 
 
 joint-estates.” Well might Mr. George exclaim 
 again : “ In the name of the prophet — figs !” 
 
 This letter was suggested by the interesting 
 study of Mr. de Laveleye on Albnends or small 
 village corporations which cultivated land in 
 common ; but even with regard to those patriar- 
 chal communities, Mr. de Laveleye had some 
 misgivings. We quote his words from the 
 edition which contains an introduction by Mr. 
 Leslie (page 17): 
 
 “ I know not whether the nations who have 
 lived tranquilly under the shelter of those patri- 
 archal institutions, will ever arrive at a happier or 
 more brilliant destiny, but this much appears 
 inevitable (the italics are ours) they will desire 
 like Adam -in ‘ Paradise Lost ’ ” (It was not yet 
 lost !) “to enter on a new career, and to taste the 
 charm of independent life, despite its perils and 
 responsibilities.” Figs again ! 
 
 Mr. George thinks highly of Quesnay, but 
 v/hat will he say of No. 4, in Maximes generates 
 du gouvernement d'^m royatime Agticole : 
 
 “Let the ownership of lands as well as of 
 movables, be secured to the lawful proprietors ; 
 for the security of property is the essential foun- 
 dation of the economic order of society.” 
 
120 
 
 (JWNKRSIIIP AND 
 
 “Without the certainty of ownership, the land 
 would remain without cultivation. There would 
 be neither proprietors nor farmers willing to 
 make the necessary expenditure, in order to give 
 it value, and improve it, were not the keeping . 
 both of the land and of its produce, secured to 
 those who make such outlays. It is the security 
 of permanent ownership which causes labor and 
 the expenditure of money in the improvement 
 and cultivation of land, as well as in commercial 
 and industrial undertakings, etc.” 
 
 Prophets seem to be against Mr. George; and 
 prudence requires nations as well as individuals 
 to heed the warnings of prophets. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 121 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ABUSE AND REMEDY. 
 
 Mr. George has seen with growing disgust the 
 blots that mar our civilization. He has felt a 
 generous sympathy for the disinherited, a burning 
 indignation against the wrong-doers, a glowing 
 hope of felling with one blow the dread monster 
 of pauperism. With his love for the poor we are 
 in entire sympathy ; we fain would see his 
 indignation turned into generous, not scornful, 
 compassion ; his hope, alas ! we cannot share ; 
 for so long as human nature remains such as it 
 now is, the return of the golden age must remain 
 an impossibility. Is there any flaw in the handi- 
 craft of Nature ? Not at all. Man having the 
 glorious power of working out his destiny, not 
 fatally but freely, may use and abuse his freedom ; 
 he has done both, and will continue to do so. 
 
 Had Mr. George’s exposure of abuses been as 
 calm and as free from exaggeration as it is fear- 
 less, it would have proved most useful to society. 
 His strictures are not all without foundation. It 
 
122 
 
 OWNKRST nr AND 
 
 is true that vast grants of land have been made 
 recklessly. It is true that corners that would 
 raise the price of the necessaries of life above a 
 reasonable maximum, and beyond the purchasing 
 power of the poor, would be criminal, and could 
 claim no right to State sanction. It is true that 
 vast transfers of capital made on no better foun- 
 dation than prospective, or rather imaginary 
 wealth, are against the laws of commutative 
 justice. But what are the remedies ? ist, A 
 higher moral standard ; or, let us say it plainly, 
 strong, pervading, Christian principles ; not 
 merely speculative, but penetrating our daily life 
 as an active, riding power. Without the influence 
 of such principles, all social adjustments will 
 prove unavailing. The laJifiindia * was not the 
 primary cause of the destruction of Rome, 
 although it unquestionably hastened its downfall. 
 The true cause is found in these words of red- 
 handed Jugurtha : “ O venal city ! soon shalt 
 
 thou perish, if thou find a .purchaser !” 2nd, In 
 wise legislation. When vast landed estates were 
 granted, it was with the intention, both of enticing 
 foreign capital, and of enlisting the interest of 
 
 * System of vast landed estates. 
 
NATUKAl. RIGHT. 
 
 123 
 
 the purchasers in the rapid development of the 
 country. That the original purpose has not been 
 always frustrated, is manifest in the great western 
 settlements, in the creation of Cullman county in 
 Alabama, and in other successful enterprises of 
 the kind. But the power conferred by such 
 grants is so liable to abuse, so easily degenerates 
 into monopoly, that the greatest caution is re- 
 quired from those who represent the interest of 
 the people, lest, in shaping the conditions of the 
 grant, they create a landed despotism. 3rd, A 
 government intrusted to the wisest and best men. 
 This depends on the people themselves. They 
 choose their own rulers. Should they prefer 
 private interest to public good, barter away their 
 votes, elect men to office not on account of their 
 worth, but because they pander to popular preju- 
 dice, no social institution could stand the pressure 
 put upon it. “ If all men were true Christians,” 
 says W. Roscher, “ a community of goods might 
 exist without danger, but then also, the institution 
 of private property could have no dark side to it. 
 Every employer would give his workmen the 
 highest wages possible, and demand in return 
 only the smallest possible sacrifice.” 
 
124 
 
 OWNKRSIUl' AND 
 
 From a merely philosophical stand-point, Aris- 
 totle rejects the plans of an obscure sophist 
 yclept Phaleas, who wished to secure both liberty 
 and equality, by dividing land equally, but without 
 interfering with other kinds of wealth. This 
 chapter of the old philosopher has not lost its 
 actuality, we quote from it a few instructive sen- 
 tences : 
 
 “ The greed of men is insatiable, they are 
 pleased at first with a^few oboli, but after getting 
 them* they want more until their cravings go 
 beyond limit. To have no bounds is the very 
 nature of ambition, for the satisfaction of which 
 most men consume their lives. A more thorough 
 cure than to equalize possessions, is to teach 
 those who by temperament are good and mod- 
 erate, not to seek more than they ought to have ; 
 and to make it impossible for the greedy and the 
 wicked to get more. The latter will be powerless 
 if they be fewer in number, and jtistly dealt with. 
 But even in his plan of equalization Phaleas pro- 
 ceeded wrongly, when he made man equal in 
 landed property. For wealth consists also in 
 slaves, in chattels, in money, in commodities, and 
 in instruments of labor. He ought therefore to 
 have equalized those kinds of wealth also, or he 
 should have left all kinds of wealth alone. . . . 
 The nature of his constitution shows that it is 
 meant only for small commonwealths. Of the 
 
X.VrUKAL RIGH'i'. 
 
 Ui) 
 
 republic of Phaleas it is no difficult matter to see 
 whether it is wise or otherwise. Kalos e me 
 Kalos.” — (Pol. Lib. 2, c. 4, p. 506-7, Firmin 
 Didot. Land Tax. 
 
 Mr. George thinks he has found a panacea in 
 Land Tax as the sole tax. This idea was probably 
 first advanced by Ouesnay, but on very different 
 ofrounds. 
 
 o 
 
 Although a great man, at least great as an 
 authority on pills and plasters, after fully demon- 
 strating the importance of agriculture, he ended 
 by riding a hobby. He thought that the best 
 way to help agriculture was to tax it, and he 
 wanted the tax to be direct, not indirect ; he as- 
 serted that it raised the price of bread, which we 
 may easily believe, and that by this means, it 
 benefited the agricultural interest. It would be 
 unfair to judge Ouesnay only when on his hobby ; 
 his economic problems are truly instructive, and 
 he certainly rendered science a service by breaking 
 the bonds of the old commercial school. Adam 
 Smith, who for a time followed his lectures, re- 
 mained his friend and admirer, and was saved, by 
 his strong common sense, from attempting to ride 
 the same hobby, whilst Turgot and Storch be- 
 
12(.) 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 Strode the old nag, and have come to grief. In 
 France, Turgot was Minister under Louis XVI, 
 fought the parliament with edicts, the people with 
 sabres, and fell with a crash. Malesherbes who 
 was a member of the same cabinet gave us the 
 following appreciation of their way of ruling: 
 “Mr. Turgot and myself were very honest folks, 
 very learned, with a passionate craving after 
 good. Who would not have thought that to 
 appoint us ministers was the very best thing that 
 could be done ? And yet, knowing men only as 
 they are in books, unskilled in the management 
 of affairs, we governed badly — unwillingly, un- 
 wittingly, we have done our share towards 
 bringing about the Revolution.” 
 
 .Storch ruled the finances of Russia under 
 Alexander I, and soon brought the country to 
 the brink of ruin. Such at least was the state- 
 ment of Count Nesselrode, who was called to 
 power to reverse the policy of Storch. 
 
 Yet Ouesnay expressly states that his doctrine 
 does not apply either to maritime powers, or to 
 countries which have become too poor to bear it. 
 John Locke, who seems to favor the idea of a 
 land tax as preferable to any other, does it on the 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 127 
 
 ground that in a purely agricultural country the 
 land owner will have in the end to pay all other 
 taxes by giving more for the commodities which 
 he is bound to purchase, and that it is both more 
 convenient and more economical to pay the whole 
 amount in the lump than in detail. Both assert 
 emphatically that private ownership in land is 
 both lawful and expedient. We do not feel called 
 upon to discuss the system of Ouesnay because 
 it has long been superseded by more advanced 
 theories, and because it does not apply to us. A 
 nation possessing over 4,000 miles of sea-coast, 
 whose wealth is represented by 12,640 millions 
 in land and cattle, and 28,555 millions in other 
 values, cannot be called “Un royavme agricole.” 
 
 But Mr. George has departed widely from the 
 principles and maxims of the physiocratic school ; 
 his rent-tax is intended as an indirect confiscation 
 of the land value. Here is the whole theory in 
 a nutshell : 
 
 “ It will not be enough to merely put all the 
 taxes upon the value of the land. It will be nec- 
 essary, where rent exceeds the present govern- 
 ment revenues, to commensurately increase the 
 amount demanded in taxation, and to continue 
 that increase as society progresses and rent ad- 
 
128 
 
 nWNRR.SHIl' AND 
 
 vances. Rut this is so natural and easy a matter 
 that it may be considered as involved, or at least 
 understood, in the proposition to put all taxes on 
 the value of land. That is the first step, upon 
 which the practical struggle must be made. When 
 the hare is once caught and killed, cooking him 
 will follow, as a matter of course .” — {Progress 
 and Poverty, Book VIII, Chap. 2.) 
 
 Ay ! but there are five million hares to be 
 killed and cooked ! How will they stand the 
 operation, since they are not to be killed outright, 
 but by inches ? 
 
 “To do this the easy way is to abolish one tax 
 after another, until the whole weight of taxation 
 falls upon the value of land. When that point is 
 reached, the battle is won. The hare is caught, 
 killed and skinned, and to cook him will be a 
 very easy matter .” — {The Land Qiiestion, Chap. 
 XI.) So the hare must understand what is in 
 store for her when it is proposed to consolidate 
 existing taxation upon land values. 
 
 How Mr. George can imagine that the carrying 
 out of such a plan will raise wages, increase the 
 earnings of capital, root out pauperism, give 
 employment to all, elevate morals, purify the 
 government, utterly baffles our comprehension. 
 
NATURAL UIGUT. 
 
 Itu' 
 
 How can it raise wages ? By what magic v/ill 
 the confiscation of landed property increase the 
 demand for factory product, or the competition 
 of capital for labor ? According to ordinary laws, 
 the leaseholder will try to get all he can out of 
 the lands with the greatest possible economy, 
 regardless of what the land will be worth after- 
 wards. If he can save a little labor, he will dis- 
 miss one or more hired hands, and send them to 
 compete with unskilled factory labor. The pro- 
 ducts of the farm will be both scantier and dearer. 
 The workingman will pay less for his whiskey 
 and his tobacco — a doubtful improvement ! for 
 his clothing, perhaps — but the difference will not 
 be very great, surely not great enough to offset 
 the higher price of the necessaries of life, and the 
 keen competition for unskilled work. — For house 
 rent not a cent to be paid ! — If you leave the 
 houses to their owners, but oblige them to pay 
 the ground-rent to the State, will they not be just 
 as free as before to rent their houses at the 
 highest price ? Now all you will have done for 
 the workingman is to tear from his breast the 
 hope of having a little house and garden of his 
 own, where he may enjoy the comfort of undi- 
 
130 
 
 OWMKR.SIIII’ AND 
 
 vided ownership, whither he may retire in his old 
 age, and which he may bequeath to his wife and 
 children. Phaleas ! Phaleas ! your plan is not 
 wise ! But will the capitalists be benefited ? Let 
 us see. If the land upon which the capitalist has 
 erected his factory belongs to another, the rent 
 must go into the pocket of the government in- 
 stead of the land-owner’s. Very well. But in 
 that case how will he be able to pay more for 
 
 labor ? If he owned the land, he will have to pay 
 a heavy tax to the government, and so have much 
 
 less margin than before. Where then will his 
 profit be? — He will have no tax to pay. — What 
 tax will he be free from ? Whiskey and tobacco, 
 besides the income tax required by States and 
 cities. Figure all these taxes out, add them to- 
 gether, subtract the sum from the rent, which will 
 begfin for all those who owned the land before, 
 where is the profit ? Moreover, tbasS-4arx-es will 
 have to be raised as the value of the ground in- 
 creases, and soon those who have merely trans- 
 ferred the payment of the rent to the State will 
 see rent absorb all the value of the land. The rent 
 will rise with the efforts they make to improve 
 the country, and they will soon be in as bad a 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 131 
 
 plight as the owners of the ground. Indeed they 
 were already, for they had started with a disad- 
 vantage : only the new system did not at first 
 increase their charges, whilst it put heavier bur- 
 dens on those who owned the land. But we will 
 only take the value of the ground rent. Well, 
 and how will you make the distinction ? Will not 
 improvements raise the value of every inch of 
 ground ? Will you determine the assessed value 
 not by the market price, but by the number of 
 square feet, then you will indeed take a heavy- 
 load from the capitalists but throw it on the 
 shoulders of husbandmen ; that is, five millions 
 will have to bear nearly the whole expense of 
 governing fifty-six millions. This will not last, 
 because at every turn of the screw, farmers will 
 have, in self defense, to raise the price of the 
 necessaries of life — who will pay ? The poor 
 workingman, who will have to feed himself and 
 family. And it is the workingman who is sup- 
 posed to be benefited ! May Providence and the 
 good sense of the American people save- them 
 from such a benefit ! 
 
 Turn it as you please, if you assess the tax 
 according to the area, you discriminate most 
 
132 
 
 OWNERS) UP AM) 
 
 unjustly against liusbandry, for it requires more 
 space to raise grain, hay, cotton and sugar, than 
 to make watches, machinery, shoes or clothing. 
 If you assess proportionately to the value that the 
 ground accpiires by being built upon or by being 
 in the neighborhood of a city, then you levy a 
 heavy tax on improvements, and deter anybody 
 from occupying empty ground or building upon it. 
 
 This system will root out pauperism — How so ? 
 Will it make the sick, the weak, the old who have 
 no savings, more able to work and make money ? 
 Will it make the slothful, active ; and the drunk- 
 ards, temperate? No it will turn adrift five 
 million land owners ; and those among tnem, who 
 lived on their rent will have to be supported by 
 the community. For when you speak of killing, 
 skinning and cooking you speak metaphorically. 
 You mean killing land-ownership, but not the 
 land-owners. But I am anxious to know on what 
 land-owners shall live, when landownership is 
 dead. 
 
 You want to purify the government, to exter- 
 minate jobbing, lobbying, etc., and you put in the 
 hands of State officials the administration of agri- 
 cultural lands worth at least ten billions, plus all 
 
NAI'URAL 
 
 lyii 
 
 the ground on which stand buildings worth thir- 
 teen billions and more ! 
 
 State officials will have to lease all that immense 
 property, collect the rent and dispose of it, and 
 you think that all incentive to corruption and 
 bribery will have disappeared! Well! perhaps 
 so, but we have never seen anything that looked 
 to us more like “ leather and prunello.” 
 
 You are making a guess at the future, and 
 doubtless you are more of a prophet than we 
 are ; but judging from analogous facts and from 
 the forces Avhich you put into motion, we would 
 make our forecast as follows : Should your plan 
 be adopted, capital would part company with 
 agriculture, subsistence would rise in value, 
 swarms of laborers would leave the field for the 
 factory, and bring down wages to the margin of 
 starvation. People finding that your fair promises, 
 like the apples of Sodom, “ turn to ashes on the 
 lip,” would forget that like Malesherbes you are 
 a very honest man, fond of their good to a passion. 
 They would call you a false prophet, perhaps do 
 something worse, which God forbid ! (N. B. — 
 
 They cut off the head of Malesherbes.) Happily, 
 the common sense of the American people, will 
 
134 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 save us the trouble of comparing notes, after the 
 catastrophe. 
 
 We are asked to accept all this on the ground 
 of equity. Let us take two workmen who have 
 saved something by hard labor and severe 
 economy. The one has invested his earnings in 
 a cotton factory, the other in a cotton field; when 
 the hare is cooked the former keeps everything, 
 the latter loses everything, and this is equity! 
 Phaleas, your plan is . . . '■otherwise!' 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 135 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OBJECTIONS DRAWN FROM ECONOMY. 
 
 A few words more about economic objections, 
 and we have done. We fain would leave this 
 part of the subject to such men as Messrs. 
 Atkinson and Gunton, but we cannot ignore 
 altogether objections which present themselves 
 with credentials from a sister science. Happily 
 we shall not have to discuss all the objectionable 
 propositions contained in Progress and Poverty,. 
 it will be enough to condense the argument and 
 try the soundness of the premises. 
 
 Mr. George sets out with a proposition which 
 is extremely misleading. According to him, 
 political economy should be as definite in its re- 
 sults as any mathematical science. It can be 
 deduced from this evident axiom — “That men 
 will seek to gratify their desires with the least 
 exertion — this principle is to political economy 
 what the attraction of gravitation is to physics.” 
 It would have been more correct to compare it 
 with the law of least action proposed by Mau- 
 
oWNKkSiUI' AND 
 
 L ;•;,(» 
 
 pertuis and developed by Euler {Menioh'cs dc 
 r Acadeniie de Berlin, 1751) — N'ature zvorks a 
 change with the least waste of pcrwer. But neither 
 the law of gravitation nor tliat of least action, 
 has more than a distant analogy with the economic 
 postulatum. The moon when whirling through 
 space, never slackens her speed or modifies her 
 course for fear of raising the tide too high ; even 
 her apparent whims are governed by inflexible 
 but unerring laws. Man may stop or blunder, he 
 may pursue his course, alter it, or retrace his 
 steps. Here we have a variable force which will 
 not be imprisoned in numbers. Then comes the 
 Iminatezial Capital of Adam Smith; Mr. George 
 may say that it is no capita! at all, but none the 
 less do brain power, acquired skill, and moral 
 conditions, influence Production, Distribution and 
 Consumption of wealth. Yet those forces cannot 
 be expressed in definite numbers, they must 
 preserve the character of indeterminate co- 
 efficients. 
 
 We may neglect them, like a tradesman who 
 would calculate his future profits without leaving 
 room for contingencies, or probable losses; the 
 sum or product would be in accordance with the 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 137 
 
 figures, but at variance with the facts; or we may 
 introduce them into our calculation by giving them 
 an assumed value, but the answer will be more or 
 less hypothetical. In both cases, the observation 
 of Mr. de Laveleye will hold good: “Economic 
 phenomena undergo a multitude of varied and 
 varying influences, which do not adapt themselves 
 to strict mathematical deductions.” — (Revue des 
 Deux Mondes, V. lo, 3 p., p. 453.) 
 
 Mr. George makes all the assumptions which 
 his course of reasoning requires, and he concludes 
 as if those assumptions were based on facts, or 
 were mathematical laws. Thus he assumes that 
 land-owners would be just as ready to improve 
 property, if they were mere lease-holders ; and 
 he concludes that there would he more produc- 
 tion, and less waste of labor ; he believes that if 
 they paid rent to the State, there would be an 
 end of speculation in real estate, (just as if men 
 who speculate in futures could not speculate in 
 rents,) and he concludes that morality would be 
 the gainer ; he assumes that property would be 
 better managed by government officials than by 
 individual owners, and he concludes that politics 
 
138 
 
 OWNKRSIlll’ AM) 
 
 would be improved and purified, whilst j)roperty 
 itself would become more valuable. 
 
 This is simply building castles in the air. 
 
 The talented writer has three principal counts 
 in his indictment of private land-ownership : 
 
 1st, It is the cause why “material progress 
 does not only fail to relieve poverty,” but “actu- 
 ally produces it.” He assumes the fact that the 
 rich become richer, whilst the poor grow poorer. 
 “It makes the struggle for existence grow more 
 intense.” 
 
 2nd, It is the cause why, “in spite of the in- 
 crease in production power, wages do tend to a 
 minimum which will give but a bare living.” 
 
 3rd, It is the “primary cause of recurring par- 
 oxysms of industrial depression.” 
 
 That “political economy, as at present taught” 
 is in opposition to his doctrine, Mr. George most 
 frankly admits, but it is the fault of the science 
 as taught, not of the science as he intends to 
 teach it. “That after a century of cultivation, 
 during which it has engrossed the attention of 
 some of the most subtle and powerful intellects, 
 it should l)e spurned by the statesmen, scouted by 
 the masses, and relegated in the opinion of many 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 189 
 
 educated and thinking men to the rank of a pseudo- 
 science in which nothing is fixed and can be fixed, 
 must, it seems to me, be due, not to any inability 
 of the science when properly pursued, but to some 
 false step in the premises, or overlooked factor 
 in its estimates.” — (Introduction to Progress and 
 Poverty.) 
 
 Since private ownership in land is charged with 
 causing the rich to get richer and the poor to grow 
 poorer, it is right to summon reliable witnesses in 
 order to ascertain whether the facts are such as 
 represented. We shall summon Messrs. M. G. 
 Mulhall, iyContemporary, December, 1886,) E. At- 
 kinson, {^Century, December, 1886, and January, 
 1887,) and George Gunton {Forum, March, 1887). 
 
 Mr. Mulhall testifies that between 1875 and 
 1885, the population of the three kingdoms has 
 increased 12 per cent.; wealth has gained 22 per 
 cent. Nor has the increased wealth been alto- 
 gether absorbed by Dives ; some crumbs have 
 fallen to Lazarus. Pauperism has decreased ; in 
 1850 there were 48 paupers to every thousand 
 inhabitants; in 1885, the rate had fallen to 27. 
 The consumption of some articles of food, which 
 mark an advance in the condition of the poor, has 
 
140 
 
 ('•WNKRSnir AM) 
 
 become much larger. In 1875 the consumption 
 ■of meat was 95 lbs. per head, in 1S85 it rose to 
 106 lbs. Sugar, which was consumed at the rate 
 of 63 lbs. in 1875, sweetened the British palate 
 with 75 lbs. in 1885. Tea gently stimulated their 
 nerves with 73 oz. in 1875, and 80 oz. in 1885. 
 
 ' Probably a much more significant fact is the 
 increase of deposits in the savings banks, and 
 mutual societies; unfortunately we have neither 
 the number nor the average amount of deposits ; 
 but the total, during the same period rose from 
 87 millions to 156 millions. Mr. Mulhall asserts 
 that the accumulations of the working classes 
 have averaged seven millions sterling per annum. 
 On the contrary the share of the capitalist, 
 denoted by the rate of interest, has gone down 
 and the share of the land-owner has undergone 
 even a greater proportional reduction; in forty 
 years it has fallen from 45 to 2 1 per cent, of the 
 agricultural products, and “if we include land 
 used for manufacturing and commercial purposes 
 . . . instead of ‘swallowing up the whole gain,’ 
 during the last 200 years, relatively to the total 
 wealth produced, it has fallen over 55 per cent.” 
 — (G. Gunton, Forum, March, p. 19-20.) 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 141 
 
 To this side of the picture there is a contrast 
 which we do not wish to conceal. While the 
 great mass of the English people have been 
 greatly benefited, it is undoubtedly true that a 
 large number of day-laborers have sunk to a 
 deplorable condition. But is it because rent 
 swallows up the increase of wealth? Not in the 
 least, since rent goes down, while wealth goes 
 up. No, the reasons are very different. The 
 first one is found in the improvidence and vices 
 of many ; the second in the greed of some 
 capitalists and some land-owners ; the third is in 
 the wasting of human energies brought on by a 
 feverish activity ; and the fourth, which is perhaps 
 the cause of the third, is the keen and unchecked 
 competition which reduces the profits to a 
 minimum. These causes would prove equally 
 active, if the rent were paid to the State ; hence 
 Mr. George was perfectly right when he said that 
 even if we abolished private property in land, 
 there would be room for tyranny and oppression. 
 The causes that we have mentioned are closely 
 connected with human nature, such as it is now, 
 and such as it will remain to the end of time ; if 
 we would reach the main causes of human suffer- 
 
142 
 
 OWNKKSIIII’ AND 
 
 ings, we must check human passions, and correct 
 vices rather than modify social adjustments. 
 
 Another observation which die liright picture 
 drawn by Mr. Mulhall suggests to the mind of the 
 reader, is this ; While England becomes more 
 and more prosperous, poor Ireland suffers the 
 pangs of starvation. The [o6 lbs. which, ac- 
 cording to statistics, should go to maintain the 
 physical strength of every British subject within 
 the United Kingdom, hardly ever appear on the 
 board of the poor Irish laborer ; his share goes 
 to line the stomach of — somebody else ; John 
 Bull is a powerful and well-fed fellow. He has 
 several times appropriated the soil of Ireland and 
 divided it off to suit himself — besides forbidding 
 his weaker neighbor to use his industry to make 
 up for confiscation. — That, under such conditions, 
 he should take more than his share of beef, is 
 just what might be expected. When we said that 
 private ownership in land, sanctioned by just laws, 
 is perfectly legitimate, we never meant to say 
 that every sort of land-ownership, in whatever 
 manner obtained, is equally entitled to our consid- 
 eration. But capital also, may be obtained by fraud 
 or by violence, and we fully admit with Mr.George 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 143 
 
 that never did fraud or violence confer a valid title. 
 
 If the condition of England has improved, the 
 progress of the United States has been marvelous 
 also. From i860 to 1880, population increased 
 at the rate of 62.69 per cent.; but wealth went up 
 at the rate of 154.92 per cent.! In 1877 the de- 
 posits in the savings banks amounted to ^866,- 
 218,306: the number of depositors was 2,395,314, 
 the average account of each deposit ^366.50. In 
 1885, according to the Statistical Abstract for 
 that year, the grand total amounted to 11,095,- 
 172,147. But as distribution had divided the 
 savings faster than production had swelled the 
 total, we find the number of depositors to be 
 3,071,495, whilst the average deposit is reduced 
 to $356.56. In Massachusetts the progress of the 
 savings banks, as shown by Mr. Atkinson, Table 
 XIII, is yet more remarkable. But there the 
 average deposit has followed the upward move- 
 ment of the grand total, it has risen from $205.62 
 to $323-99' 
 
 The remarks with which Mr. Atkinson accom- 
 panies his tables are no less valuable than the 
 tables themselves, we beg leave to quote the 
 following : 
 
]i4 
 
 (iWNKKSllll' AND 
 
 “ In the judgment of tlie Commissioner of 
 Savings Banks, and of many others who are 
 competent to form an opinion, at least three- 
 fourths of the present d-eposits in these banks 
 (•the !\IassachuT;etts Savings Banks) belong to 
 tliose are strictly of the working classes, in the 
 limited sense in which those whose daily work is 
 necessary to their daily bread make use of that 
 term.” (The italics are ours). Figures supplied 
 ])y the United States Bureau of Statistics seem to 
 prove that the daily bread has been improved. 
 In 1867, the consumption of wheat per capita was 
 5.68 bushels; in 1884 it had reached 6.66. Sugar, 
 in i860, sweetened our palates at the rate of 
 25.87 lbs.; in 1880, we had each 39.62 lbs. of 
 linked sweetness ; but we took such fancy to it 
 ourselves, or bought so much candy for the little 
 ones, that the consumption rose to 53.25 in 1884. 
 (Abstract p. 144. Compare Remaining for con- 
 sumption with Popidationl) It is true we assume 
 that the quantity left for heyne consumption has 
 been really consumed ; to obtain very exact fig- 
 ures the waste should be subtracted, but it is 
 next to impossible to ascertain the waste in sugar, 
 and we deem our figures a fair approximation. 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 145 
 
 nothing more. We have been unable to ascer- 
 tain the consumption of meat, principally on 
 account of the canned meats which can be pre- 
 served for a very long time, so that nothing can 
 be concluded from the amount sla^ightered. 
 
 With regard to tea and coffee, the tabulation 
 contained in page 143, Statistical Abstract, 1885, 
 gives the following results : Tea, peT- capita, in 
 1862, 0.71 lb.; in 1868, 0.97 lb.; in 1885, 1.15 lbs. 
 Coffee, in 1862, 3.46 lbs.; in 1868, 6.52; in 1885, 
 9.49 lbs. 
 
 We do not consider these figures as making up 
 a perfect demonstration ; every one knows how 
 easily we may be led astray by a false interpre- 
 tation of statistics, but we contend that they have 
 much more weight than any amount of individual 
 observations, and that, when pointing to the same 
 result, they form a concurrent testimony which 
 cannot be overruled by a fair-minded judge. 
 
 But if, notwithstanding individual cases of se- 
 vere hardships, it cannot be truly said that the 
 poor in general are becoming poorer, it is true 
 the rich are growing richer, and that, on the part 
 of capital, there is a tendency to concentration. It 
 may become a danger, but is not in itself an evil. 
 
140 
 
 OWNERSlIIl’ AND 
 
 Mr. Cicorge seems to l)e of this opinion; “Tlie 
 concentration that is going on in all branches of 
 industry is a necessary tendency of our advance 
 in the material arts. It is not in itself an evil. 
 If in anything i^s results are evil, it is simply l^e- 
 cause of our bad social adjustments .” — (Social 
 Problems, c. xvii, p. 205.) 
 
 Mr. Thiers does not dread the large fortunes 
 that are built up by concentration : “These ac- 
 cumulations of wealth, which so readily catch the 
 eye, are neither as numerous nor as vast as fancy 
 pictures them. Should men get into their heads 
 to divide them, but a trifling amount could be 
 allotted to each of the sharers. We would have 
 taken away the incentive which conjures up labor 
 and the means of paying for the noblest efforts 
 of skill. In a word, the plan of God would have 
 been marred, and nobody would have grown 
 wealthier.” — (De la Propriete, p. 33.) 
 
 The next count in the indictment has no more 
 weight than the first. Private ownership in the 
 land does not force down the wages, for the very 
 simple reason that wages in general do not go 
 down. Mr. Atkinson, in Table N, XII, exhibits 
 the following results: In i860, the wages of a 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 147 
 
 workman of average skill were j^i.68; in 1885, 
 they had risen to ^2.04. Skillful workmen re- 
 ceived $2.37 in i860, and $3.00 in 1885. In the 
 mean time, from i860 to 1885, valuable tables 
 calculated by Mr. Grosvenor shoi^'^ that the ad 
 vance of the dollar compared with two hundred 
 commodities has been from i to 1.2644. But as 
 we do not wish to argue for the sake of arguing, 
 we must draw attention to a fact, which may de- 
 note a momentary oscillation, or a permanent 
 condition brought about by the ordinary laws of 
 industrial equilibrium. Whilst skilled labor has 
 retained its hold, labor of average skill has lost a 
 little ground between 1881 and 1885. The deflec- 
 tion is expressed by the two numbers 2.18 and 
 2.04; in other words, the loss of average labor has 
 amounted to fourteen cents nominal wages per 
 diem. In our opinion this is due to a large impor- 
 tation of the same class of labor from Europe, 
 yet it is a fact that challenges the attention of the 
 poor workman’s friend ! 
 
 We feel confident that the depression is only 
 momentary, but even at the present rate it re- 
 mains true that skilled labor has gained, since 
 i860, 63 cents per day, and that workmen of 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 ; 48 
 
 of average .skill have gained 36 cents, whilst tin; 
 pti’rchasing power of one dollar has increased to 
 1.2644. These facts justify the following asser- 
 tion of Mr. Atkinson : “At the preselit time, and 
 at present prices the gold dollar will buy twenty- 
 si.x per cent, more than in i860. That is to say, 
 wages are now' as high or higher than they were 
 from 1865 to 1872 in paper, and much higher than 
 they Avere in i860 in gold; they are now paid in 
 gold coin or its equivalent. This gold coin will buy 
 the commodities which are necessary to subsist- 
 ence, in the ratio of 126 units now, relatively to 75 
 units in 1872, and to 57^ units in 1865, or to 100 
 units in i860. Wages have increased absolutely 
 and relatively, while profits have decreased rela- 
 tively in much greater proportion.” 
 
 The same result is reached if we consider the 
 margin of profit on a gi\'en quantity of produce, 
 and the quantity of produce devoted to the pay- 
 ment of wages. For the elucidation of this fact, 
 Ave beg leave to refer the reader to the article of 
 Mr. Gunton, in the Forum of March, 1887, p. 18. 
 
 Hut hoAv is it that we hear so many complaints ? 
 In the first place, we shall always hear numerous 
 complaints. Moreover we have ourselves pointed 
 
NATUKAI- RIGHT. 
 
 149 
 
 out an oscillation of 14 cents in the wages paid to 
 labor of the second class. Those temporary losses 
 always excite complaints, whilst a rise seldom is 
 gratefully acknowledged. Next, we must observe 
 that the ambition of man, or his acquired wants, 
 are apt to grow faster than the means to satisfy 
 them. Moreover, it is a certain fact that con- 
 sumption in America is extremely wasteful. This 
 is shown by the thrift of many families whicli 
 enjoy greater comforts than others, and yet in- 
 crease their little board steadily, by the side of 
 others that have precisely the same means of 
 bettering their condition, but remain miserably 
 poor, and are always on the verge of starvation. 
 Lastly, improvidence and restlessness are com- 
 mon failings, especially among the young men 
 who happen to be beyond the reach of family 
 ihfluences. 
 
 Let it not be understood that we deny the con- 
 stant outcropping of abuses, or the existence of 
 undeserved hardships ; we have too often con- 
 versed with the poor, entered their humble cot- 
 tages, partaken of their simple but hearty cheer, 
 to ignore their sufferings, or to be without a heart 
 that can bleed for them ; what we maintain is, that 
 
OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 ir)0 
 
 in this Avorld, it is impossible to dry the well-springs 
 of human tears. Suffering has its mission, and suf- 
 fering there M^ill be unto the end of the world ; 
 the key to its significance must be found in the 
 teachings of the Gospel. We must do all in our 
 power to assuage grief, but we cannot stamp it 
 out. 
 
 To make land national property would be un- 
 availing. Factory operatives would not rent farm 
 lands from the State any more than they do from 
 private individuals ; even in the present state of 
 things, it is an easy matter for any man to get 
 land enousfh to wrest from it his subsistence in 
 exchange for the sweat of his brow ; but division 
 of labor has reared walls of separation which have 
 made the transformation and interchange of labor 
 a matter of far gredter difficulty than before. If 
 lIic factory operatives would leave their work- 
 shops for the fields, they would as a rule prove 
 but very indifferent farmers ; we have seen it 
 tried over and over again. 
 
 Seldom can a trained workman be contented 
 Avithout the whirr and buzz of machinery; he 
 needs the excitement of vast and unceasing pro- 
 duction. Too often he seeks the intoxicating air 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 151 
 
 of great cities, although by rushing into the haunts 
 of men, he knows that he will make competition 
 keener, and raise the rent of the humblest dwel- 
 ling. He will rather starve in a great centre, 
 than thrive in a quiet abode. The chief remedy 
 is a moral one : the workman must learn not to 
 3'earn after the unattainable, and the capitalist 
 must understand that it is not only his duty, but 
 also his interest, to afford his employees all the 
 compensations to which a life of drudgery and 
 toil is entitled. Away with the monstrous prin- 
 ciple that Corporations need not have a soul ! A 
 moral as well as a physical organism, when bereft 
 of spirit, is not a live but a dead thing. 
 
 In order to fasten the responsibility for social 
 evils on land ownership, Mr. George is compelled 
 to dispose of the obvious objection that wages 
 being taken out of capital, the antagonism is 
 between the greed of the capitalist, and the 
 aspirations of the working class. Right loyally 
 and heartily does he set out to upset the received 
 theory. 
 
 “I am aware that the theorem that wages are 
 drawn from capital is one of the most fundamental 
 and apparently best settled of current political 
 
152 
 
 OWNERSHIP AND 
 
 economy, and that it has been accepted as 
 axiomatic by all the greatest thinkers who have 
 devoted their powers to the elucidation of the 
 science. Nevertheless, 1 think it can be demon- 
 strated to be a fundamental error — the fruitful 
 parent of a long series of errors, which vitiate 
 the most important practical conclusions.” — 
 [Progress and Poverty, Chap, i.) 
 
 Now' wdien we poor Philistines find that a 
 proposition received as axiomatic by all the great 
 thinkers who have elucidated a science, clashes 
 wdth our preconceived opinions, \ve conclude that 
 our opinions are ill-grounded, or that we have 
 not well understood the axiom. What then is the 
 meaning of this formula, V/ages are drawn from 
 capital? Evidently this, that a capitalist in order 
 to employ labor must have in the present 
 economic wmrld, besides a certain amount of fixed 
 capital invested in the plant itself, another amount 
 of circulating capital to pay for labor. Or, taking 
 the other term of the relation, that a workman 
 will not begin his toil unless he be morally sure 
 that he will receive for his labor a compensation 
 in circulating capital, with which he may buy the 
 necessaries of life for himself and family. To us 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 153 
 
 this axiom looks just as evident as it seemed to 
 the greatest thinkers who elucidated the science. 
 How does Mr. George upset it? 
 
 By a reductio ad absurdum. 
 
 “In the formula, the wages of labor are drawn 
 from capital, substitute for the term capital its 
 equivalent ; according to the very authors who 
 cling to the axiom, capital is stored up or accu- 
 mulated labor. (The expression of Lassalle, 
 crystallized labor, is prettier yet.) The proposi- 
 tion then reads : the wages of labor are drawn from 
 stored up labor," Well! what of that? In the 
 first place let us not take a metonymy for a literal 
 expression. Capital is the product of labor, not 
 labor itself. Labor is transient and, as economists 
 say, it does not keep, but the result may be per- 
 manent. If you choose to take the cause for the 
 effect as men constantly do, chiefly in poetry, 
 nothing prevents you from using the term con- 
 densed or stored up or crystallized labor for the 
 word capital, only you cannot base an economic 
 argument on a figure of speech — Yet It is absurd 
 to say that the reward of the first exertion is 
 stored up labor — Certainly, and nobody asserts 
 this absurdity. Economists indeed say that 
 
154 
 
 OWNICRSIIII’ AND 
 
 nature contributes the first capital, but their 
 meaning is cpiitc plain ; the bounty of nature is to 
 the first work, what capital is to labor in a more 
 advanced state of civilization. We see nothing 
 absurd in that. 
 
 But the workman produces wealth before he is 
 paid, this wealth is the reward of his exertions 
 and should be considered as his natural economic 
 wages — Possibly so, but he does not want it; he 
 wants cash or the equivalent; he cannot support 
 his family on pig iron, railroad track, or tunnel ; 
 before engaging in the work, he must know that 
 there is cash somewhere to reward him for his 
 labor, and this is all that economists affirm as an 
 axiomatic principle. 
 
 Moreover Mr. George tacks oa to that axiom 
 the Wage Fund theory, wliich consists in assert- 
 ing that at any moment there is a fixed amount 
 of capital to be divided among the workmen, so 
 that the standard wages could be found by 
 dividing that amount into the number of work- 
 men. This is what Karl Marx and others call 
 the Iron Law of Wages. It is an iron law whose 
 consequences are far reaching, but Mr. George 
 might have mentioned that Mr. Mill whom he 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 155 
 
 quotes as authority, found out that he was mis- 
 taken, and loyally acknowledged his error ; that 
 the French school never accepted it, and that 
 standard English authorities like Stanley Jevons 
 have admitted it was a Fool's Paradise. 
 
 But Mr. Thornton, who was, after Mr, Longe, 
 the staunchest adversary of the Wage Fund, is 
 equally liable to objection, for he holds “ that 
 wages are drawn from capital.” “Prof. Francis 
 A. Walker still admits that wages are in large 
 part drawn from capital.” Of course they are, 
 but take away the iron fixity of the Wage Fund, 
 and you leave the competition of capitalists to 
 secure labor, and the competition of labor to 
 secure employment to modify the rate of wages. 
 Iron fixity has disappeared, human activity is set 
 free, and the law itself ceases to be objectionable. 
 
 “If wages depend upon the ratio between the 
 amount of labor seeking employment and the 
 amount of capital devoted to its employment, the 
 relative abundance or scarcity of one factor must 
 mean the relative scarcity or abundance of the 
 other” — Yes, all other things being equal ; but sup- 
 pose that the eagerness to invest is the same, and 
 that the available quantity of labor is fixed, then 
 
156 
 
 OWNlCRSmi' AND 
 
 the increase of capital will bring as a necessary 
 consecjuence a rise in wages, because capitalists 
 will compete to secure labor. 
 
 “Interest is high where wages are high, and 
 low where wages are low.” Often this happens 
 to be true ; nay more, the three factors into which 
 Mr. George divides production rise sometimes 
 together. Why? because the joint product of 
 land, labor and capital happens to be so much 
 larger than it was before that some part of it goes 
 to the land-owner, some to the workman, some to 
 the land-holder. Professor Cairnes accounts for 
 the low rate of interest in prosperous but slowly 
 progressing countries by the fact that a great 
 deal of circulating capital must have been trans- 
 formed into fixed capital. The explanatio.n is 
 certainly “very ingenious,” but there is another 
 fact which must not be forgotten. In a new 
 country the opportunities are exceptional. For 
 instance, iron ore may be found close to the 
 surface, or coal may be mined with very little 
 expense, fields may be covered with harvests 
 without requiring fertilizers, etc. Thus the out- 
 lay is less, and therefore leaves a greater margin. 
 In the ec^uation : Produce = Rent + Wages + 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 157 
 
 Interest (supposing the statement to be correct), 
 let us not forget that Produce is the compound 
 result of capital, labor, and the bounty of nature. 
 A variable quantity itself, it is the product of 
 three quantities which may influence it in varying 
 proportions. The equation is not quite as simple 
 as the statement of Mr. George would lead one 
 to believe, nor can the doctrine of standard econ- 
 omists be overturned by such arguments as the 
 formula P = R + W + I. 
 
 The last count is summed up in the following 
 lines : 
 
 “ In the preceding chapter I have shown that 
 the speculative advance in land-values tends to 
 press the margin of cultivation, or production, 
 beyond its normal limit, thus compelling labor 
 and capital to accept of a smaller return, or (and 
 this is the only way they can resist the tendency) 
 to cease production.” 
 
 That there is a tendency in human nature to 
 absorb profit, we readily grant ; it is true of land- 
 owners, capital-owners and laborers alike. But 
 that the check is sufficient in the case of the 
 land-owner is made evident by the fact that the 
 proportion coming to him is constantly decreasing, 
 as Mr. Gunton has shown in the Forum of March, 
 
158 
 
 OWNEKSIIJI' y\NlJ 
 
 1887. As Mr. Atkinson truly observes, rhe 
 margin of the planter or farmer Is extremely 
 contracted. 
 
 “ Raw land has no value, and kind attains value 
 only when capital and labor are ap[)lied to its 
 improvement. The investment of capital in 
 agriculture is, as a general mle, much greater in 
 bringing the land into productive condition, than 
 it is in the investment in buildings and looIs upon 
 the land. A very large part of each year’s ex- 
 penditure consists in maintaining the fertility of 
 the soil after its virgin properties begin to be 
 exhausted, in building and maintaining fences, 
 and in other uses of capital which is often utterly 
 lost, if the effort is suspended even for a *very 
 short period. What proportion of the value of 
 the products of agriculture can be assigned as 
 the true margin of profit, it is impossible to state, 
 but it is well known to be very small — much less 
 than in the manufacturing arts.” 
 
 It would be both unjust and Inexpedient co lay 
 heavier burdens on so deserving a class of pro- 
 ducers when they are already at a disadvantage. 
 
 Those who own town lots on Vv’hich nothing 
 grows and nothing is built, are in reality subjected 
 to a fine ; while the ground brings them no re- 
 turn, the owners must pay a tax which in some 
 cities, Philadelphia for instance, amounts to the 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 159 
 
 full value of the ground rent. If all die town lots 
 belonged to the state, empty lots would pay 
 nothing. Moreover speculations, instead of being 
 at an end, would become compulsory. Nobody 
 could rent empty lots from the state for any pur- 
 pose but speculation ; none but capitalists could 
 do so. The question would be this: “How can 
 I make money by holding that lot within the term 
 of my lease?” If the capitalist thought that 
 shanties would pay him best, he would erect 
 shanties; what would be done afterwards with 
 the lot, would be to him a matter of supreme in- 
 difference. Besides, after seeing society rescind 
 all past enactments, by taking the property from 
 private owners, nobody would be inclined to trust 
 that faithless being that would have said once : 
 “My will is law! Let vested rights give way 
 before my will !” Reflection will convince any 
 man who knows human nature that such a tam- 
 pering with vested rights would be inexpedient 
 as well as unlawful. 
 
 Large investments either in agricultural lands, 
 or in town lots, might, if injudicious, contribute, 
 in some measure, to a financial depression ; but 
 this cause being chiefly local, would hardly in- 
 
100 
 
 OWNERSilir ANl) 
 
 fluence the financial condition of a great com- 
 monwealth. Obstinate clinging to unimproved 
 property might also create some uneasiness in a 
 great city, but self interest is probably the best 
 corrective. In other words, although the dog-in- 
 the-manger is not, as the Dodo, an extinct species, 
 it does not seem to be a sufficiently dangerous 
 animal to require special legislation. Take all 
 the abuses which we have mentioned, group them 
 together, you will have proved nothing but that 
 abuses may sometimes require a check, a position 
 which few men will gainsay. 
 
 Karl Marx fully understood that the most pre- 
 valent cause of recurring depressions was the 
 unwise investment of capital : 
 
 “The enormous power inherent in the factory 
 system, of expanding by jumps, and the depen- 
 dence of that system on the markets of the world, 
 necessarily beget feverish production, followed 
 by overflowing of the markets, whereupon con- 
 traction of the markets brings on crippling, of 
 production, crisis and stagnation. The uncer- 
 tainty and instability to which machinery subjects 
 the employment, and consequently the conditions 
 of existence, of the operatives become normal, 
 owing to these periodic changes of the industrial 
 cycle. Except in the periods of prosperity, there 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 KU 
 
 rages between the capitalists the most furious 
 combat for the share of cash in the market. . . . 
 There also comes a time in every industrial cycle 
 when a forcible reduction of wages beneath the 
 value of the labor power, is attempted for the 
 purpose of cheapening commodities.” — (Capital, 
 vol. 2, p. 455, edited by F. Engels.) 
 
 This indeed is a real cause of recurring parox- 
 ysms of financial depression. But would State 
 ownership cure the evil ? We think it would 
 make the paroxysms both more acute and more 
 lasting. In the present social adjustments, the 
 errors of capitalists are individual ; did the State 
 attempt to handle the whole capital of a nation, 
 the blunders would become national. Can we 
 make the rulers infallible in matters which are 
 much better adapted to the special training of 
 thousands of capitalists, whose intellect is made 
 keener and more active by the incentive of self- 
 interest ? Again, we appeal to those who have 
 studied men, not as they are in some books, but 
 as they walk the earth, with the powers and pas- 
 sions which ferment in the human breast. 
 
 According to many economists, supported both 
 by English and German official reports, the last 
 crisis was chiefly due to relative overproduction. 
 
OWNEKSIIII' AND 
 
 ]62 
 
 When so many forces are at play, it is often dif- 
 ficult to point out the leading one ; but facts seem 
 to prove that this opinion is substantially correct. 
 If we take, for instance, the production of cotton, 
 we find that in 1886 the yield in this country 
 amounted to 2,154,476 bales; in 1875 it was 
 3,827,845; in 1883 it rose to 6,949,756; in 1885 
 it fell to 5,706,165. One million bales remaining 
 unemployed for a certain length of time means 
 at least fifty millions of dollars which remain idle 
 during the same period. The capacity of facto- 
 ries and the wants of society increasing, the 
 surplus is absorbed sooner or later ; but those 
 sudden expansions and contractions must cause 
 some disorder in the economic world. The pro- 
 duction of pig iron increases more steadily, but 
 demand does not always keep pace with produc- 
 tion. In 1883, any one could see vast yards filled 
 with pig iron which could not be sold at remuner- 
 ative prices. Let either the lavishness of nature 
 or the eagerness of producers overstep the re- 
 quirements of trade, stagnation must follow. Mr. 
 George denies at first the possibility of overpro- 
 duction : “Manifestly there can be no overpro- 
 duction, in any general or absolute sense, untd 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 168 
 
 desires for wealth are all satisfied.” Of course, 
 all the desires of mankind can never be satisfied 
 in this world, “the greed of man is insatiable”; 
 but the question is, whether in attempting to meet 
 those desires, too much labor and capital may not 
 be thrown on the wrong side, and turn the finan- 
 cial scale. This the gifted writer grants, perhaps 
 unconsciously, when he adds: “Relative over- 
 production there may be ” {Social Problems, Ch. 
 xii). Just so, and relative overproduction may 
 often account, at least partially, for a financial 
 crisis. 
 
 Some economists have attributed the depres- 
 sion to the building of railroads, “ running from 
 point nowhere to point nowhere,” and to “the 
 conversion of circulating capital into fixed cap- 
 ital.” To the latter statement, Mr. Moody objects 
 that circulating capital is not either destroyed or 
 converted by the building of new roads, but finds 
 its way to the home of the poor. This is perfectly 
 true, but circulating capital is a stream that needs 
 constant feeding. Should 270 millions (the amount 
 estimated by the writer whom Mr. Moody criti- 
 cizes) be absorbed by labor which would create 
 nothing but fixed capital, and' should that fixed 
 
OWNKKSIIII' AND 
 
 l(i4 
 
 capital jneld little or no return, an important 
 spring would he dammed up, and barrenness he 
 the fatal consecpience. 
 
 Economists have mentioned many other de- 
 pressing influences, such as war, political agitation, 
 over-expansion of the credit system, unsound 
 currency, want of confidence in [mhlic honest)-. 
 All these causes may have their share in bringing 
 about a crisis.* The immediate occasion is some- 
 times whimsical: thus in 1648, tulips did some 
 mischief in Holland ; some of them commanded 
 the extravagant price of ^2,293.50. The whim 
 passed away, and the lovely flowers faded, without 
 leaving gold in their stead. 
 
 Mr. George thinks that this great variety of 
 statements shows that economists have not 
 reached the true cause ; to us it is an evidence 
 of the care with which they have tried to bring 
 in all the important factors. Simplicity is an ex- 
 cellent thing, but in a complex calculation, we 
 must not eliminate factors which may tell on the 
 product. And yet, when we search carefully the 
 sad records of crises, we find beneath economic 
 
 * (We bc^ leave to refer the reader to an excellent article by Mr, 
 Horace White in the Cyclopedia of Political Science, V. 1., p. 523-) 
 
NATURAL RIGHT. 
 
 If)') 
 
 phenomena, two underlying causes, miscalculation 
 and ambition, that will ever make themselves felt. 
 And thus we are brought back to the old Greek 
 
 I 
 
 philosopher : 
 
 “To have no bounds is the very nature of 
 ambition. A more thorough cure than to equalize 
 possessions, is to teach those who by tempera- 
 ment are good and moderate, not to seek more 
 than they ought to have, and to make it impossible 
 for the greedy and the wicked to get more. The 
 latter shall be powerless if they be few in number, 
 and justly dealt with.” 
 
 Had we undertaken to refute all the misleading 
 statements of socialists, more time and talent 
 would have been required than has fallen to our 
 lot. An analysis of the most_questionable prem- 
 ises seemed to us all that was needed. 
 
 Mr. George loves the poor and hates iniquity: 
 We do not question his sincerity,and we honor him 
 for his benevolence. He thought he had found a 
 panacea for all the ailments of the body politic ; 
 we felt convinced that his diagnosis was wrong, 
 and that his panacea would turn to poison ; we 
 have said so bluntly and given our reasons. 
 Were we allowed to express a wish, it vrould be 
 this : may he continue to devote his unquestion- 
 
166 
 
 OWNERSIItr AND 
 
 able abilities and, singleness of purpose to '■lie 
 cause of the disinherited, but -without giving 
 lawful property holders just grounds to fear for 
 the foundations of the social fabric. Should this 
 wish be granted, we would thank our Common 
 Father that the gifts he has bountifully bestowed, 
 are used unsparingly in behalf of the humblest 
 among his children. 
 
3k^ 
 
 PPENDIX. 
 
 CHURCH DECISIONS. 
 
 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife ; nor 
 his house, nor his field, nor his man-servant, nor 
 his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any 
 thing that is his.” — Deuteronomy, v, 21. 
 
 But Peter said : Ananias, why hath satan 
 tempted thy heart, that thou shouldst lie to the 
 Holy Ghost, and by fraud keep part of the price 
 
 of the field f 
 
 Whilst it remained, did it not remain to thee?’^ 
 — (While it remained, was it not thine own ? — King 
 James’ translation, and revised edition.) — ^^and 
 being sold, was it not in thy power ? Why hast 
 thou conceived this thing in thy heart ?” — The 
 Acts, V, 3, 4. 
 
 The decisions of the Roman Catholic Church 
 on questions of Faith and Morals being acknowl- 
 edged as final by over two hundred and twenty- 
 five millions of human beings, it is a matter of 
 great importance to know the doctrine held by 
 a tribunal which exercises so vast a jurisdiction. 
 Before mentioning some of the official utterances 
 
 16 T' 
 
108 
 
 CHURCH DECISIONS. 
 
 we must define the Latin word Possessiones, which 
 is often met with both in mediaeval documents 
 and in the writings of Theologians. 
 
 Forcellini, the great Latin Lexicographer, after 
 defining Possessio, “the fact, or the right of 
 ownership,” explains the meaning of the plural 
 Possessiones by quoting Lestus, Cicero, Caesar, 
 and Sallust. In all his quotations, it means landed 
 property. We give one of them with the con- 
 text: “ Domitius, in a public address, promises 
 to each of the soldiers a lot of four acres out of 
 his own estates {possessionibus.) Centurions and 
 veterans shall receive a proportional grant.” — 
 (Caesar de Bello Civili, Lib. L, C. XVII.) 
 
 In the middle ages, even the singular number 
 usually meant a farm {^prcedium^j D’Arnis, after 
 Ducange and others, quotes the following defini- 
 tion of the Salic law : “ Possessio — PrcBdium 
 
 quod quis possidet — A farm owned by some one.” 
 
 Possessiones is used in the sense of landed 
 estates both in the code of Theodosius and in that 
 of Justinian. We select a document which is 
 found in both, with some variations ; this docu- 
 ment besides determininu' the meaninofof the word 
 possessiojics, has a consiclcraljle historical import- 
 
CHURCH DECISIONS. 
 
 ]69 
 
 ance. It is an edict of the first Christian Emperor, 
 Constantine, bearing the date of April 29th, A. 
 D., 334, under the consulship of Proculus and 
 Paulinus, 
 
 “ Whereas, in Sardinia, both Patrimonia|^^te^^ 
 (fundis Patrimonialibus,j and rented lands (SHf^phec- 
 teate-cariis-j have been divided among different 
 owners ; the division of estates (possessionumj 
 should have been done in such a manner as to let 
 slaves remain together with their family under the 
 same master. F or v/ho can bear that parents should 
 be severed from their children, sisters from their 
 brothers, husbands from their wives. Therefore, let 
 those who have separated them, bring them again 
 together. If those who thus give up their slaves 
 suffer loss, let them be compensated by the land- 
 owners who shall receive the servants thus brought 
 back. Vigilance must be exercised lest in the 
 province there should be any more complaints that 
 the family ties of slaves are severed.” — (Codex 
 Theod. Jacob Gothfred, Lyons, Cod. it, Tit. XXV., ist 
 vol., p. 199.) 
 
 The document is reproduced in the Codex of 
 Justinian, (lib. 1 1 1, Tit. xxxviii) with the following 
 
 
170 
 
 CHURCH DECISIONS. 
 
 differences: ist, The edict has become the gen- 
 
 eral law of the empire, hence mention of Sardinia 
 is omitted. 2nd, Besides slaves (servi,) mention 
 is made of settlers (colon! adscriptitias conditionis) 
 and the tenants (inquilini) — A division of property 
 that should interfere with the family relations of 
 settlers who had established themselves on the 
 land with the consent of the owners on condition 
 of paying a yearly due, or of the regular tenant 
 farmers, was prohibited by law. 
 
 In the Institutes, (lib. 3“, Tit. x,) possessiones is 
 taken in another sense ; it means the various legal 
 processes by which an heir was put in possession 
 of the property left by a relative mTo had died 
 intestate. In Canon Law, possessiones usually 
 means Landed Estate. See for instance the 
 Corpus Juris, Causa xiii, q. ii, C. i — Causa xvi, 
 quaestio iii, C. i, and q. iiii, C. i — q. vi, C. vii, 
 etc., etc. Sometimes, however, the word possessio 
 is found with the meaning of Diocese or even of 
 country Parish. These cases are exceptional. . 
 
 Communism was taught by the Apostolics or 
 Apolactics, as early as the second century of the 
 Christian era. St. Augustine, who brands their 
 doctrine as the 40th heresy, speaks of them as 
 
CHURCH DECISIONS. 
 
 171 
 
 follows: “The Apostolics proudly assumed that 
 name because they did not admit to their Com- 
 munion those who, being married, or holding prop- 
 erty, swerved from the practice of monks and of 
 many members of the clergy who belong to the 
 Catholic Church. They were heretics, because 
 separating themselves from the Church, they held 
 that those could not hope for salvation who made 
 use of the riches which their own sect did not 
 possess . . . etc. — (De haeresibus, lib. unus.) 
 
 St. Epiphanius mentions the same error as the 
 sixty-first heresy. He contrasts with it the true 
 Catholic teaching: “The Church also favors 
 continence, but does not for that reason condemn 
 nuptials.' She cherishes absolute poverty, but 
 does not proudly inveigh against those who obtain 
 property by just means or who have received it 
 from their parents, to meet their own wants and 
 those of the poor. Many within her pale observe 
 abstinence, but they do not proudly censure those 
 who satisfy their hunger.” 
 
 The condemnation of these sectaries involves 
 a censure of Socialism, even when limited to Land 
 Tenure ; for the “property received from parents” 
 evidently refers chiefly to lands, which formed at 
 the time the great bulk of inherited property. 
 
172 
 
 CHURCH HUCISIOXS. 
 
 On the twelfth day of May, A. D., 1210, Pope 
 Innocent III, issued a letter prescribing the j^ro- 
 fession of faith to be made by the Waldorses 
 before they could be received back into the 
 Church. This formula contains the following 
 declaration : “We profess and believe that those 
 who remain in the world and retain their posses- 
 sions (sua possidentes,) making use of their riches 
 to give alms and perform works of mercy, ob- 
 serving at the same time the commandments of 
 the Lord, will be saved.” Surely this declaration 
 comprises landed property, for wealth in the shape 
 of capital was, at the time, an insignificant factor. 
 
 On the 22nd of March, 1418, Pope Martin V, 
 condemned 45 pi'opositions of John Wyckliffe. 
 The condemnation is contained in the Bulls ''Inter- 
 Cunctas,” and "In Eminentis''' which are a confir- 
 mation and renewal of decrees issued by the 
 Council of Constance three years before. (See the 
 collection of Labbe, Vol. xii, col. 45, 46, 47, 48, 
 49.) Among those condemned propositions we 
 notice the following: “10. That ecclesiastics 
 should hold property is against Holy Writ.” “33. 
 Pope Sylvester and the Emperor Constantine 
 erred in settling property (dotando) on the 
 
CHURCtt DECISIONS. 
 
 173 
 
 Church.” “36. The Pope, as well as all ecclesiastics 
 who possess property, are heretics, because they 
 hold real estate (eo quod possessiones habent,) 
 those also a.re heretics who agree with them, 
 namely, all temporal Lords and laymen.” 
 
 Those who were suspected of entertaining the 
 opinions of Wyckliffe, or of Huss, were obliged to 
 answer thirty-nine questions. The 34th runs as 
 follows : “ Does he believe that ecclesiastics may 
 
 lawfully and without sin hold in this world both 
 real estate and temporal goods (possessiones et 
 bona temporalia”) (Bullit Inter ctmctas.) Here 
 possessiones are explicitly distinguished from other 
 kinds of wealth. It needs no argument to show' 
 that if it be not unlawful for ecclesiastics, who are 
 bound to follow Christ more closely than others, 
 to own land, such ownership cannot be a boldy 
 bare, enormous lurong. 
 
 There are many Bulls, encyclical letters and 
 allocutions in which both Socialism and Com- 
 munism are condemned, but hoping that the 
 reader will consult the original documents, 
 deem it sufficient to quote the followin' 
 which the doctrine of the Church 
 fined. Alluding to a treaty 
 
174 
 
 CHURCH HECISIONS. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen of Spain, Pius IX, speaks as 
 follows : 
 
 “We have not neglected the temporal welfare 
 of the Church; for with all zeal and energy, we 
 have defended and maintained the riglit whicli 
 belongs to her, to acquire and hold any kind of 
 real and fi'uit-bcaring property; (quaecumcjue 
 bona stabilia et frugifera) as the decisions and 
 precedents of numberless Councils and holy 
 Fathers and the constitutions of our predecessors 
 have clearly established, wisely taught, and de- 
 monstrated. Would to God that everywhere on 
 earth and in every part of the world, the posses- 
 sions given to God and his Holy Church had 
 remained inviolate and had been treated with due 
 respect. We would not be compelled to bewail 
 many evils, well known to all, and many damages 
 suffered by civil society, all of which have sprung 
 from the utterly unjust confiscation of Church 
 goods and estates, and from the reckless spolia- 
 tion which has, in a great measure, prepared the 
 oil for the growth of those most pernicious and 
 tal errors: Socialism and Communism.” — 
 Dcution, Qtcilms Ltulnosissmtis, Sept, 
 so Encycl. Oui Plii-ribus, Nov.