Page:The Effects of Civilisation on the People in European States.djvu/76

54 it is acquisition in the one, it is deprivation in the other. Further, it gives an influence and a power to the person possessing, over the person not possessing. It subjects the non-possessor to an influence and power to be exercised over him by the possessor, and the consequences of it are highly injurious to him. Wealth is an advantage to the possessor only as it is a disadvantage to the non-possessor; and exactly in the same proportion. If it gave no claim on, no power over, brought no disadvantage to the non-possessor, it would give no claim to, no power to, no advantage to, the possessor. What the possessor has, the non-possessor is deprived of.

The situation of the rich and the poor, like the algebraic terms plus and minus, are in direct opposition to, and destructive of each other. The original acquisition or assumption of land, therefore, to be just, required merit in the person on whom it was bestowed, or by whom it was assumed, equal to the value of it; and a demerit in the person, or the public, from whom it was taken, by which they had forfeited their right to it. To prove the two cases, the one positive, the other negative, is incumbent on those that pretend to support the justice of the original foundation of the exclusive property in land. But how can this be done? What action or service could the