Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/362

348 of his argument through, the ten sections of which the chapter is composed:

1. Given a race of beings having little claims to pursue the objects of their desires, and a world into which such beings are similarly born, it unavoidably follows that they have equal rights to the use of this world. Conversely, it is manifest that no one, or part of them, may use the earth in such a way as to prevent the rest from similarly using it.

2. Equity, therefore, does not permit property in land. Otherwise, landless men might equitably be expelled from the earth altogether.

3. We find yet further reason to deny the rectitude of property in land. Violence, fraud, the prerogative of force, the claims of superior cunning, these are the sources to which titles may be traced. Could valid claims thus be constituted? Hardly. If not, what becomes of the pretensions of all subsequent holders of estates so obtained?

4. Not only have present land tenures an indefensible origin, but it is impossible to discover any mode in which land can become private property. Cultivation can not give a legitimate title.

5. Why not agree to a fair subdivision of the land? Until we can demonstrate that men born after a certain date should be doomed to slavery, we must consider no such allotment permissible.

6. Either men have a right to make the soil private property or they have not. No compromise is possible. If they have such a right, then the Duke of Sutherland may justifiably banish Highlanders to make room for sheep-walks.

7. After all, nobody does implicitly believe in landlordism. If a canal, a railway, or a turnpike road is to be made, we do not scruple to seize just as many acres as may be requisite. If we decide that the claims of individual ownership must give way, then we imply that the right of the nation at large to the soil is supreme.

8. To what does this doctrine, that men are equally entitled to the use of the earth, lead? Instead of being in the possession of individuals, the country would be held by the great corporate body—society. Instead of leasing his acres from an isolated proprietor, the farmer would lease them from the nation. Clearly, on such a system, the earth might be inclosed, occupied, and cultivated in entire subordination to the law of equal freedom.

9. No doubt great difficulties must attend the resumption, by mankind at large, of their rights to the soil. The question of compensation to existing proprietors is a complicated one—one that perhaps can not be settled in a strictly equitable manner. But there are others besides the landed class to be considered. The rights of the many are in abeyance. To deprive others of