Page:Adolph Douai - Better Times (1877).djvu/23

 private property? And if not, can land be private property according to common sense and morality? There is no moral, equitable title to private property but work. There is no value ever created except by labor. If we, by our labor improve a piece of land, we certainly have a moral and reasonable title to the value of our improvement; but not to the land itself, because we did not create the land. It is a free gift of Nature, and no one can—in higher law—lay his hand on a piece of this gift which was given to all, and call it his own, to the exclusion of all others. To deny this would be as much as to say, that a handful of men should have the right to demand that all the rest must drown themselves in the ocean, if those few did not choose to tolerate their existence. In Scotland and in Ireland, as is notorious, millions of inhabitants were, within the last thirty years, forcibly exiled from the land of their birth and their inherited share of the products of the soil, to make room for sheep drifts or deer parks or cattle pastures, for the sole benefit of a few robbing land-owners. And even in our own state of Massachusetts, there are some dozen towns belonging exclusively to one person, or to one company who have the right to drive out of the limits of the town any one of their operatives who should dare to oppose their lordship's intentions. In Texas, there are whole counties belonging to one or a few great cattle raisers who may exile any inhabitant obnoxious to the lords. And all this is so late and rapid a growth that no one can deny that this system will spread very soon all over the country if a determined resistance is not organized.

The private ownership of the soil is commonly justified—not on a principle of moral right, but on a maxim of expediency. It is said this ownership is useful because it encourages the owners to improve their land, and so to make it far more fruitful for the owners and the State. Nobody would care to cut down the forests, to drain the swamps, to break and plough and improve the soil, to erect durable and ornamental buildings and fences on it, to build roads and keep them in repair, to plant trees and stock the waters with fish, etc., unless he knew that he could safely enjoy the fruit of all this labor down to his last days, and leave to his children and grand-children this land as their birthright. To this defense we must object that no sane person will try to destroy an inducement to such work, or blame the hankering of most men for a secure possession of a share in the soil and a life among the charms of nature. It just for this reason that we reformers wish to secure the blessings connected with a share of the soil to every mother's son who wishes for it. But for this purpose