Difficulties may now and then occur in the performance of this process. We shall, perhaps, occasionally find ourselves unable to decide whether a given action does or does not trespass against the law of equal freedom. But such an admission by no means implies any defect in that law. It merely impUes human incapacity — an incapacity which puts a limit to our discovery of physical as well as of moral truth. It is for instance, quite beyond the power of any mathematician to state in degrees and minutes, the angle at which a man may lean without falling. Not being able to find accurately the APPLICATION OF THIS FIEST PRINCIPLE. Ill centre of gravity of a man's body, he cannot say with certainty whether, at a given inclination, the line of direction will or will not fall outside the base. But we do not, therefore, take exception to the first principles of mechanics. We know that, in spite of our inability to follow out those first principles to all their consequences, the stability or instability of a man's attitude might still be accurately determined by them, were our perceptions competent to take in all the conditions of such a problem. Similarly, it is argued that, although there may possibly arise out of the more complex social relationships, questions that are apparently not soluble by comparing the respective amounts of freedom the concerned parties assume, it must nevertheless be granted that, whether we see it or not, their claims are either equal or unequal, and the dependent actions right or wrong accordingly.
For those who have faith in the abstract, and who dare to foUow wherever an acknowledged doctrine may lead, it will be sufiicient to point out the several conclusions which may be drawn from this first principle, and to leave those conclusions to stand or fall by the logicalness of their deduction. It is to be feared, however, that results arrived at by so purely philosophical a process, will weigh but little with the majority. People who " cannot understand a principle until its light falls upon a fact," are not to be swayed by inferences so deduced. Wedded as they are to the guidance of a superficial experience, they are deaf to the enunciation of those laws, of which the complex phenomena they draw their experience fi-om are the workings out. We have, nevertheless, to deal with such as best we may; and, to meet their case, evidence of a so-called "practical" nature must be adduced. Whenever, therefore, we arrive at inferences conflicting with the general opinion, it is intended to follow up the argument by showing that " experience," rightly interpreted, enforces these inferences.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RIGHTS OF LIFE AND PERSONAL LIBERTY.
These are such self-evident corollaries from our first principle as scarcely to need a separate statement. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, it is manifest that he has a claim to his life: for without it he can do nothing that he has willed; and to his personal liberty: for the withdrawal of it partially, if not wholly, restrains him from the ftilfilment of his will. It is just as clear, too, that each man is forbidden to deprive his fellow of Kfe or Uberty: inasmuch as he cannot do this without breaking the law, which, in asserting his freedom, declares that he shall not infringe " the equal freedom of any other." For he who is killed or enslaved is obviously no longer equally free with his killer or enslaver.
It is unnecessary to commend these conclusions by any exposition of advantages. All spontaneously assent to them. There are a few simple truths of which the moral sense gives a sufficiently clear perception without the aid of logic; and these are of the number. The time was, indeed, when the law of adaptation having as yet produced but little effect, the feelings that respond to these truths were comparatively undeveloped, and consequently produced no spontaneous recognition of them. And did we live in the old Assyrian days when a subject was the property of his king — were it our THE RIGHTS OF LIFE AND PEESONAL LIBERTY. 1 1 3 custom to chain a porter to his cell on one side of the door, opposite to the kennel of the house-dog on the other, as in Athens and Rome — did we sacrifice men to the gods, or send our prisoners of war to he torn to pieces in an amphitheatre, it might be needfal to enforce the doctrines here enunciated, by showing the expediency of acting upon them. But happily we live in better times; and may congratulate ourselves on having reached a phase of civilization, in which the rights of life and personal liberty no longer require inculcating.
Into such questions as the punishment of death, the perpetual imprisonment of criminals^ and the like, we cannot here enter. These implying, as they do, antecedent infractions of the law, and being, as they are, remedial measures for a diseased moral state, belong to what has been elsewhere termed Therapeutical Etliics, with which we have now nothing to do.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
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 similarly bom, and it unavoidably follows that they have equal rio-hts to the use of this world. For if each of them " has freedom to do all that he wills provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other," then each of them is free to use the earth for the satisfaction of his wants, provided he allows all others the same Uherty. And 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; seeing that to do this is to assume greater freedom than the rest, and consequently to break the law.
Equity, therefore, does not permit property in land. For if one portion of the earth's surface may justly become the possession of an individual, and may be held by him for his sole use and benefit, as a tiling to which he has an exclusive right, then other portions of the earth's surface may be so held; and eventually the whole of the earth's surface may be so held; and our planet may thus lapse altogether into private hands. Observe now the dilemma to which this leads. Supposing the -entire habitable globe to be so enclosed, it follows that if the landowners have a valid right to its surface, all who are not landowners, have no right at all to its surface. Hence, such can exist on the earth by sufferance only. They are all trespassers. Save by the permission of the lords of the soil, they can have no room for the soles of their feet. Nay, should the others think fit to deny them a resting-place, these landless men might equitably be expelled from the earth altogether. If, then, the assumption that land can be held as property, involves that the whole globe may become the private domain of a part of its inhabitants; and if, by consequence, the rest of its inhabitants can then exercise their faculties — can then exist even — only by consent of the landowners; it is manifest, that an exclusive possession of the soil necessitates an infiingement of the law of equal freedom. For, men who cannot " live and move and have their being" without the leave of others, cannot he equally free with those others.
Passing from the consideration of the possible, to that of the actual, we find yet further reason to deny the rectitude of property in land. It can never be pretended that the existing titles to such property are legitimate. Should any one think so, let him look in the chronicles. Violence, fraud, the prerogative of force, the claims of superior cunning — these are the sources to which those titles may be traced. The original deeds were written with the sword, rather than with the pen: not lawyers, but soldiers, were the conveyancers: blows were the current coin given in payment; and for seals, blood was used in preference to wax. Could vahd claims be thus constituted? Hardly. And if not, what becomes of the pretensions of all subsequent holders of estates so obtained? I>oes sale or bequest generate a right where it did not previously exist? Would the original claimants be nonsuited at the bar of reason, because the thing stolen from them had changed hands? Certainly not. And if one act of transfer can give no title, can many? No: though nothing be multiplied for ever, it wiU not produce one. Even the law recognises this principle. An existing holder must, if called upon, substantiate the claims of those from whom he purchased or inherited hjs property; and any flaw in the original parchment, even though the property should have had a score intermediate owners, quashes his right.
" But Time," say some, " is a great legaliser. Immemorial possession must be taken to constitute a legitimate claim. That which has been held from age to age as private property, and has been bought and sold as such, must now be considered as irrevocably belonging to individuals." To which proposition a willing assent shall be given when its propounders can assign it a definite meaning. To do this, however, they must find satisfactoi-y answers to such questions as — How long does it take for what was originally a wrong to grow into a rigid? At what rate per annum do invaUd claims become valid? If a title gets perfect in a thousand years, how much more than perfect will it be in two thousand years? — and so forth. For the solution of which they ■will require a new calculus.
Whether it may be expedient to admit claims of a certain standing, is not the point. We have here nothing to do with considerations of conventional privilege or legislative convenience. We have simply to inquire what is the verdict given by pureequity in the matter. And this verdict enjoins a protest against every existing pretension to the individual possession of the soU; and dictates the assertion, that the right of mankind at large to the earth's surface is still valid; all deeds, customs, and laws, notwithstanding.
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 is commonly considered to give a legitimate title. He who has reclaimed a tract of ground from its primitive wildness, is supposed to have thereby made it his own. But if his right is disputed, by what system of logic can he vindicate it? Let us hsten a moment to his pleadings.
THE RIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EAKTH. 117 " Hallo, you Sir," cries the cosmopolite to some backwoodsman, smoking at the door of his shanty, " by what autliority do you take possession of these acres that you have cleared; round which you have put up a snake-fence, and on which you liave buUt this log-house? " "By what authority? I squatted here because there was no one to say nay — because I was as much at Uberty to do so as any other man. Besides, now that I have cut down the wood, and ploughed and cropped the ground, this farm is more mine than yours, or anybody's; and I mean to keep it."
" Ay, so you all say. But I do not A'et see how you have substantiated your claim. When you came here you found the land producing trees— sugar-maples, perhaps; or may be it was covered with prairie-grass end wild strawberries. Well, instead of these, you made it yield wheat, or maize, or tobacco. Now I want to understand how, by exterminating one set of plants, and making the soil bear another set in their place, you have constituted yourself lord of this soil for all succeeding time."
" Oh, those natural products which I destroyed were of little or no use; whereas I caused the earth to bring forth things good for food — things that help to give Ufe and happiness."
" Still you have not shown why such a process makes the portion of earth you have so modified yours. What is it that you have done? You have turned over the soil to a few inches in depth with a spade or a plough; you have scattered over this prepared surface a few seeds; and you have gathered the fruits which the sun, rain, and air, helped the soil to produce. Just teU me, if you please, by what magic have these acts made you sole owner of that vast mass of matter, having for its base the 6m"face of your estate, and for its apex the centre of the globe? all of which it appears you would monopohse to yourself and your descendants for ever."
" Wen, if it isn't mine, whose is it? I have dispossessed nobody. When I crossed the Mississippi yonder, I found nothing but the silent woods. If some one else had settled here, aad made this clearing, he would have had as good a right to the location as I have. I have done nothing but what any other person was at liberty to do had he come before me. Whilst they were unreclaimed, these lands belonged to all men — as much to one as to another — and they are now mine simply because I was the first to discover and improve them."
" You say truly, when you say that ' whilst they were unreclaimed these lands belonged to all men.' And it is my duty to tell you that they belong to all men still; and that your ' improvements' as you call them, cannot vitiate the claim of all men. You may plough and harrow, and sow and reap; you may turn over the soil as often as you like; but all your manipulations will fail to make* that soil yours, which was not yours to begin with. Let me put a case. Suppose now that in the course of your wanderings you come upon an empty house, wliich in spite of its dilapidated state takes your fancy; suppose that with the intention of making it your abode you expend much time and trouble in repairing it — that you paint and paper, and whitewash, and at considerable cost bring it into a habitable state. Suppose further, that on some fatal day a stranger is announced, who turns out to be the heir to whom this house has been bequeathed; and that this professed heir is prepared with all the necessary proofs of his identity: what becomes of your improvements? Do they give you a valid title to the house? Do they quash the title of the original claimant? " "Neither then do your pioneering operations give you a valid title to this land. Neither do they quash the title of its original claimants — the human race. The world is God's bequest to, mankind. All tnen are joint heirs to it; you amongst the number. And because you have taken up your residence on a certain part of it, and have subdued, cultivated, beautified that part — improved it as you say, you are not therefore warranted in appropriating it as entirely private property. At least if you do so, you may at any moment be justly expelled by the lawful owner — Society."
" " Well, but surely you would not eject me without making some recompense for the great additional value I have given to this tract, by reducing what was a wilderness into fertile fields. You would not turn me adrift and deprive me of all the benefit of those years of toil it has cost me to bring this spot into its present state."
" Of course not: just as in the case of the house, you would have an ec[uitable title to compensation from the proprietor for repairs and new fittings, so the community cannot justly take possession of this estate, without paying for all that you have done to it. This extra worth which your labour has imparted to it is fairly yours; and although you have, without leave, busied yourself in bettering what belongs to the community, yet no doubt the community wiU duly discharge your claim. But admitting this, is quite a different thing from recognising your right to the land itself. It may be true that you are entitled to compensation for the improvements this enclosure has received at your hands; and at the same time it may be equally true that no act, form, proceeding, or ceremony, can make this enclosure your private property."
It does indeed at first sight seem possible for the earth to become the exclusive possession of individuals by some process of equitable distribution. " Why," it may be asked, " should not men agree to a fair subdivision? If all are co-heirs, why may not the estate be equally apportioned, and each be afterwards perfect master of his own share? " To this question it may iu the first place be replied, that such a division is vetoed by the difficulty of fixing the values of respective tracts of land. Variations in productiveness, different degrees of accessibihty, advantages of climate, proximity to the centres of civilisation — these, and other such considerations, remove the prohlem out of the sphere of mere mensuration into the region "of impossibihty.
But, waiving this, let us inquire who are to be the allottees. Shall adult males, and all who have reached twenty-one on a specified day, be the fortunate individuals? If so, what is to be done with those who come of age on the morrow? Is it proposed that each man, woman, and child, shall have a section? If so, what becomes of all who are to be bom next year? And what wiU be the fate of those whose fathers sell their estates and squander the proceeds? These portionless ones must constitute a class already described as having no right to a resting-place on earth^as living by the sufferance of their fellow men — as being practically serfs. And the existence of such a class is wholly at variance with the law of equal freedom.
Until therefore, we can produce a valid coromission authorizing us to make this distribution — until it can be proved that God has given one charter of privileges to one generation, and another to the next — until we can demonstrate that men born after a certain date aCre doomed to slavery, we must consider that no such allotment is permissible.
Probably some will regard the difficulties inseparable from individual ownership of the soil, as caused by pushing to excess a doctrine applicable only witliin rational limits. This is a veiy favourite style of thinking with some. There are people who hate anything in the shape of exact conclusions; and these are of them. According to such, the right is never in either extreme, but always half way between the extremes. They are continually trying to reconcile Yes and No. Ifs, and huts, and excepts, are their delight. They have so great a faith in "the judicious mean" that they would scarcely believe an oracle, if it uttered a full-length principle. Were you to inquire of them whether the earth turns on its axis from East to West, or from West to East, you might almost expect the reply — " A little of hoth," or " Not exactly either." It is doubtful whether they ■would assent to the axiom that the whole is greater than its part, ■without making some qualification. They have a passion for compromises. To meet their taste, Truth must always be spiced with a little Error. They cannot conceive of a pure, definite, entire, and unlimited law. And hence, in discussions like the present, they are constantly petitioning for limitations — always ■ssishing to abate, and modify, and moderate — ever protesting against doctrines being pui"sued to their ultimate consequences.
But it behoves such to recollect, that ethical truth is as exact and as peremptory as physical truth; and that in this matter of land-tenure, the verdict of morahty must be distinctly yea or nay. Either men have a right to make the soil private property, or they have not. There is no medium. We must choose one of the two positions. There can be no half-andhalf opinion. In the nature of things the fact must be either one way or the other.
If men have not such a right, ■we are at once delivered from the several predicaments alrea,dy pointed out. If they luive such a right, then is that right absolute, sacred, not on any pretence to be ■violated. If they have such a right, then is bis Grace of Leeds justified in -waming-off tomists from Ben Mac Dhui, the Duke of Atholl in closing Glen Tilt, the Duke of Buccleugh in denying sites to the Free Church, and the Duke of Sutherland in banishing the Highlanders to make room for sTieep-walks. If they have such a right, then it would be proper for the sole proprietor of any kingdom — a Jersey or Guernsey, for example — to impose just -what regulations he might choose on its inhabitants — to teU them that they should not live on his property, unless they professed a certain religion, spoke a particular language, paid him a specified reverence, adopted an authorized dress, and conformed to all other conditions he might see fit to make. If they have such a right, then is there truth in diat tenet of the ultra-Tory school, that the landowners are the only legitimate rulers of a country — that the people at large remain in it only hy the landowners' permission, and ought consequently to submit to the landowners' rule, and respect whatever institutions the landowners set up. There is no escape from these inferences. They are necessary corollaries to the theory that the earth can become individual property. And they can only he repudiated by denying that theory.
After all, nobody does impHcitly believe in landlordism. We hear of estates being held under the king, that is, the State; or of their being kept in trust for the public benefit; and not that they are the inalienable possessions of their nominal owners. Moreover, we daily deny landlordism by our legislation. Is a canal, a railway, or a turnpike road to be made? we do not scruple to seize just as many acres as may be requisite; allowing the holders compensation for the capital invested. We do not wait for consent. An Act of Parhament supersedes the authority of title deeds, and serves proprietors with notices to quit, whether they will or not. Either this is equitable, or it is not. Either the public are free to resume as much of the earth's surface as they think fit, or the titles of the landowners must be considered absolute, and all national works must be postponed until lords and squires please to part with the requisite slices of their estates. 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 — that the right of private possession only exists by general consent — that general consent being withdrawn it ceases — or, ia other words, that it is no right at all.
" But to what does this doctrine, that men are equally entitled to the use of the earth, lead? Must we return to the times of unincloscd wilds, and subsist on roots, berries, and TBE EIGHT TO THE USE OF THE EARTH. 123 game? Or are we to be left to the management of Messrs. Fourrier, Owen, Louis Blanc, and Co.? " Neither. Such a doctrine is consistent with the highest state of civilization; may be carried out without involving a community of goods; and need cause no very serious revolution in existing arrangements. The change required would simply be a change of landlords. Separate ownerships would merge into the joint-stock ownership of the pubUc. Instead of being in the possession of individuals, the coimtry would be he held by the great corporate body — Society. Instead of leasing his acres from an isolated proprietor, the farmer would lease them from the nation. Instead of paying his rent to the agent of Sir John or his Grace, he would pay it to an agent or deputy-agent of the community. Stewards would be pubUc officials instead of private ones; and tenancy the only land tenure.
A state of things so ordered would be in perfect harmony with the moral law. Under it aU men would be equally landlords; all men would be aUke free to become tenants. A, B, C, and the rest, might compete for a vacant farm as now, and one of them might take that farm, without in any way violating the principles of pure equity. All would be equally free to bid; aU would be equally free to refrain. And when the farm had been let to A, B, or 0, all parties would have done that which they willed — the one in choosing to pay a given sum to his fellow-men for the use of certain lands — the others in refusing to pay that sum. Clearly, therefore, on such a system, the earth might be inclosed, occupied, and cultivated, in entire subordination to the law of equal freedom.
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 cannot be settled in a strictly-equitable manner.
Had we to deal with the parties who originally robbed the human race of its heritage, we might make short work of the matter. But, unfortunately, most of our present landowners are men who have, eitlier mediately or immediately — either by their own acts, or by the acts of their ancestors — given for their estates, equivalents of honestly-eai-ned wealth, beheving that they were investing their savings in a legitimate manner. To justly estimate and liquidate the claims of such, is one of the most intricate problems society will one day have to solve. But with this perplexity and our extrication from it, abstract morahty has no concern. Men having got themselves into the dilemma by disobedience to the law, must get out of it as well as they can; and with as little injury to the landed class as may be.
Meanwhile, we shall do well to recollect, that there are others besides the landed class to be considered. In our tender regard for the vested interests of the few, let us not forget that the rights of the many are in abeyance; and must remain so, as long as the earth is monopohsed by individuals. Let us remember, too, that the injustice thus inflicted on the mass of inankind, is an injustice of the gravest nature. The fact that it is not so regarded, proves nothing. In early phases of civilization even homicide is thought hghtly of. The suttees of India, together with the practice elsewhere followed of sacrificing a hecatomb of human victims at the buiial of a chief, show this: and probably cannibals consider the slaughter of those whom " the fortune of war " has made their prisoners, perfectly justifiable. It was once also universally supposed that slavery was a natural and quite legitimate iustitution — a condition into which some were bom, and to which they ought to submit as to a Divine ordination; nay, indeed, a great proportion of mankind hold this opinion still. A higher social development, however, has generated in us a better faith, and we now to a considerable extent recognise the claims of humanity. But our civilization is only partiid. It may by-and-by be perceived, that Equity utters dictates to which we have not yet hstened; and men may then learn, that to deprive others of their rights to the use of the earth, is to commit a crime inferior only in wickedness to the crime of taking away their lives or personal liberties.
Briefly reviewing the argument, we see that the right of each man to the use of the earth, limited only by the hke rights of liis fellow-men, is immediately deducible from the law of equal freedom. We see that the maintenance of this right necessarily forbids private property in land. On examination all existing titles to such property turn out to be invalid; those founded on reclamation inclusive. It appears that not even an equal apportionment of the earth amongst its inhabitants could generate a legitimate proprietorship. We find that if pushed to its ultimate consequences, a claim to exclusive possession of the soil involves a landowning despotism. We further find that such a claim is constantly denied by the enactments of our legislature. And we find lastly, that the theory of the co-lieirship of all men to the soil, is consistent with the highest civilization; and that, however difficult it may be to embody that theory in fact, Equity sternly commands it to be done.
CHAPTER X.
THE EIGHT OF PROPERTY.
The moral law, being the law of the social state, is obliged whoUy to ignore the ant«-social state. Constituting, as the principles of pure morality do, a code of conduct for the perfect man, tliey cannot be made to adapt themselves to the actions of the uncivilized man, even under the most ingenious hypothetical conditions — cannot be made even to recognise those actions so as to pass any definite sentence upon them. Overlooking this fact, thinkers, in their attempts to prove some of the first theorems of ethics, have commonly fallen into the error of referring back to an imaginary state of savage wildness, instead of referring forward to an ideal civilization, as they should have done; and have, in consequence, entangled themselves in difBculties arising out of the discordance between ethical principles and the assumed premises. To this circumstance is attributable that vagueness by which the arguments used to establish the right of property in a logical manner, are characterized. Whilst possessed of a certain plausibility, they yet cannot be considered conclusive; inasmuch as they suggest questions and objections that admit of no satisfactory answers. Let us take a sample of these arguments, and examine its defects.
" Though the earth and all inferior creatures," says Locke, " be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this nobody has a right to but himself The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say are properly his. Whatever then he removes out of the state that THE EIGHT OF PROPERTY. 127 nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is liis own, and thereby makes it his propert)'. It being bj' him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For tliis labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least when there is enough and as good left in common for others."
If inclined to cavil, one might in reply to this observe, that as, according to the premises, "the earth and all inferior creatures"- — all things, in fact, that the earth produces — are " common to all men," the consent of aU men must be obtained before any article can be equitably " removed from the common state nature hath placed it in." It might be argued that the real question is overlooked, when it is said, that, by gathering any natural product, a man " hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby made it his property; " for that the point to be debated is, whether he had any right to gather, or mix his labour with that, which, by the hypothesis, previously belonged to mankind at large. The reasoning used in the last chapter to prove that no amount of labour, bestowed by an individual upon a part of the earth's surface, can nullify the title of society to that part, might be similarly employed to show that no one can, by the mere act of appropriating to himself any wild unclaimed animal or fruit, supersede the joint claims of other men to it. It may be quite true that the laboui- a man expends in catching or gathering, gives him a better right to the thing caught or gathered, than any one other man; but the question at issue is, whether by labour so expended, he has made his right to the thing caught or gathered, greater than the pre-existing rights of all other men put together. And unless he can prove that he has done this, his title to possession cannot be admitted as a matter of right, but can be conceded only on the ground of convenience.