Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/799

Rh the communities which made up the nation had a sort of corporate overlordship over any one, still more that all the rest of the world had any right to complain of their "appropriation of the means of subsistence," most assuredly never entered the heads of our forefathers. But, alongside this corporate several ownership, there is strong ground for the belief that individual ownership was recognized, to a certain extent, even in these early times. The inclosure around each dwelling was understood to belong to the family inhabiting the dwelling; and, for all practical purposes, must have been as much owned by the head of it as a modern entailed estate is owned by the possessor for the time being. Moreover, if any member of the community chose to go outside and clear and cultivate some of the waste, the reclaimed land was thenceforth recognized as his—that is to say, the right of ownership, in virtue of labor spent, was admitted.

Thus it is obvious that, though the early land-holders were, to a great extent, collective owners, the imaginary rights of mankind to universal land-ownership, or even of that of the nation at large to the whole territory occupied, were utterly ignored; that, so far from several ownership being the result of force or fraud, it was the system established with universal assent; and that, from the first, in all probability, individual rights of property, under certain conditions, were fully recognized and respected. Rousseau was, therefore, correct in suspecting that his "state of nature" had never existed—it never did, nor anything like it. But it may be said, supposing that all this is true, and supposing that the doctrine that Englishmen have no right to their appropriation of English soil is nonsense; it must, nevertheless, be admitted that, at one time, the great body of the nation, consisting of these numerous land-owning corporations, composed of comparatively poor men, did own the land. And it must also be admitted that now they do not; but that the land is in the hands of a relatively small number of actually or comparatively rich proprietors, who constitute perhaps not one per cent of the population. What is this but the result of robbery and cheating? The descendants of the robbers and cut-throat soldiers who came over with William of Normandy have been true to their military instincts, and have "conveyed" the property of the primitive corporations into their own possession. No doubt, that is history made easy; but here, once more, fact and a priori speculations can not be made to fit.

Let us look at the case dispassionately, and by the light of real history. No doubt, the early system of land-tenure by collective several ownership was excellently adapted to the circumstances in which mankind found themselves. If it had not been so, it would