(fituxmll Winivmii]^ Jitotg BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrg W. Sage 1891 A..A.fLLi.M.t: ^..a/AkX 9963 Cornell University Library HD 1471.G7058 On land concentration and irresponsibili 3 1924 013 715 986 A Cornell University S Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013715986 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER AS CAUSING THE ANOMALY OF A WIDESPREAD STATE OF WANT BY THE SIDE OF THE VAST SUPPLIES OF NATURE LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1886 i^The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.) INTRODUCTION. In considering the prevalence of distress among mankind, little reflection is required for arriving at the fact that the evil is not attributable in its full extent, either to the natural inequality of men at birth, or to the increase and force that inequality- may have acquired by development of the faculties and legitimate circumstances occurring in a state of society ; and it becomes evident that it is still less the consequence of any vice inherent to the nature of the sufferers, which can be no worse than that of others, or the effect of failure in natural supplies, which at the utmost would only be partial and local in any case. The instances of gross imperfection or bad fortune from such circum- stances, would not account for more than excep- tional destitution, to be easily relieved by voluntary aid. But the severity of the evil is exemplified by a worse condition — that of a multitude around «3 VI INTRODUCTION. US in want of the necessaries of life, among whom one million of souls, permanently starved out of their homes, have no alternative to save their lives, but to accept relief through taxation of the com- munity. This state of things presents a shameful anomaly, when looked at by the side of the vast spontaneous produce of nature, far exceeding man's general requirements, or when contrasted with the circumstances of the few here and there in possession of all the power and the soil, who are surfeited with superfluity, and points to wrongs elsewhere. We have been at all times reminded that sin- fulness and error are the characteristic of mankind, and there can be no doubt that among these failings there is one, which, arising from the instinct that causes each to seek his Subsistence, leads him to appropriate more than he requires ; and there is also ever the mistake made of constantly setting aside the dictates of our proper judgment, which prompts us not only to refrain, but to restrain others from committing such an offence ; and it becomes very much a question whether these faults of commission and omission are not at the bottom of the wrongs we have alluded to, that is to say, whether the wrongs do not arise from a predatory INTRODUCTION. Vll disposition on the part of many, and the neglect in their collective capacity of one and all to protect themselves against it. The supposition almost implied in this question, that such is the case, would certainly, if true, appear a very simple solu- tion of a great social problem. But to be of any practical use it is evident that explanation is required, showing distinctly the manner in which both fault and error must have operated; and it is the object of this work to bring forth such infor- mation as it is assumed may afford it. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I, PAGE The agencies and spontaneous produce of nature — Man in his relation thereto ... ... ... ..i ... I CHAPTER II. Combination of labour with the natural agencies and produce in forming wealth — The foundation of private property ... 8 CHAPTER III. Classification of sources of wealth, and of the people owning it ... ... ... ... ... ... i8 CHAPTER IV. The owner of land in relation to the land and its rent ... 23 CHAPTER V. The owner of capital in relation to his capital and the profits from it ... ... ... ... ... ... 40 CHAPTER VI. The labourer in relation to his work and the wages he gets for it — View of the social and political state of his case ... 45 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. PAGE Concentration of property in the land as basis of the Con- stitution — Development of landed estates (realty) under concentration — Contrasted with rise and progress of capital (personalty) under distribution ... ... ... 54 CHAPTER VIII. Effects of concentration of property in land and of distribution of capital respectively ... ... ... •■■75 CHAPTER IX. Process of conversion of large feudal occupancies into present concentrated freeholds ... ... ... ... 96 CHAPTER X. Distribution of the land and its produce, according to priority of rights acquired by labour — a main law of nature ... 105 CHAPTER XI. Irresponsibility of a legislative assembly, arising from hereditary political power vested in its members, viewed in connec- tion with the purposes and foundation of political institutions generally ... ... ... ... ... ... 122 CHAPTER XII. Baneful effect of irresponsibility in political institutions, and their constant tendency in that condition to concentrate both land and power ... ... ... ... ... i^y CHAPTER XIII. Proposed abolition of all hereditary political power, and reversal of all laws supporting concentration of the land in this country ... ... ... ... ... . . jcg CONTENTS. xi CHAPTER XIV. PAGE Schemes of socialism, or communism of property, an ill-advised reaction against its concentration ... ... ... 167 CHAPTER XV. The land viewed in connection with the burthens and public services which should be met out of its produce ... 187 CHAPTER XVI. Proposed new basis of general taxation ... ... ... 196 CHAPTER XVII. Progress of society in its intellectual, social, and political rela- tions to the present day — Its tendency to triumph over all attempts at concentration of property and usurpation of the sovereignty which resides only in the people ... ... 218 CHAPTER XVIII. , A social compact proved to be the foundation of all political rights and morality ... ... ... ... ... 232 CHAPTER XIX. Sovereignty of the people and distribution of property, deduc- tions of the social compact, and the surest principles for consolidating order and improving production ... ... 252 CHAPTER XX. Concentration of property in land and irresponsibility of politica power opposed to principles of the social compact, and debasing ... ... ... ... ... ... 275 Appendix A ... ... ... ... ... ... 285 Appendix B ... ... ... ... ... ... 291 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. CHAPTER I. The agencies and spontaneous produce of nature — Man in his relation thereto. We read of Galileo's confirmation of the dis- coveries by Copernicus of the motion of the earth and planets, of Kepler's revelations of the elliptic form of the planetary orbits, and of the laws of gravitation laid down by Sir Isaac Newton, giving evidence of the elevations of the human mind to the greatest heights, in exploring the course of physical objects. But the most prominent maxim or fact pretended to be laid down as result of the various inquiries which have been made upon B 2 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND the subject before us is, that the distress is simply inevitable, owing to the natural inequality in men's abilities, the law of demand and supply, the trenching of population upon subsistence, the dependency of labour upon capital, and the un- controllable nature of the wage fund — all stated to be economic laws which are inexorable ; and this conclusion is endeavoured to be confirmed by the aid of figures, and even of geometry, applied to compare population with produce and the earth's surface, which in many cases cannot endure even a quarter of an hour's criticism ; for figures may serve to arrive at the laws of the weights of bodies, and of their motions ; but they cannot show the effects of the contending forces of man's wants, will, powers, and passions, which must have had considerably and most to do with his condition. An error seems to have been committed in adopting these processes of the exact sciences for proving the conclusion, and it has originated under the notion that fixed laws must govern man's condition, in very much the same way as other fixed laws control the course of the planets. In fact, the wants of mankind for subsistence, which can be satisfied only by the supplies pro- IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 3 vided so evidently for them by nature ; the abso- lute claim of mankind, from these circumstances, to the supplies ; the mutual dependence of its members for the better utilizing of their resources, and their tendency, each for himself, to appropriate as much as possible, constitute circumstances which cause the operation of all laws connected with man's condition to be, on the contrary, most un- certain ; and these have been overlooked. Con- flict is ever going on between the members acting more or less in a private interest, and the com- munity who are guided in their pursuits by a common object in their general wants ; and the strife prescribes the necessity of popular combi- nation, by laws and institutions, for effectually securing that object, and curbing any power of interference with it. There appears little reason to doubt that inter- ference, through the evil passions, with the general wants of the human race, by means of undue power, and the absence of efficient collective control over such an abuse, have been a main cause of the gross inequalities and distress in question, and that it is essential in the general interest, for the people to look to perfecting their social combina- tions, having regard to the economic laws that are 4 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND known to affect their condition, rather than to the simple working of those laws, which latter course would be little better than leaving matters to themselves, and allowing, in many cases, the abuse itself to develop, to the prejudice of all economic working. The causes of the painful privations endured by so many among mankind are the same in the main throughout the world ; but they work at times and in localities in different ways and different degrees of intensity, according to the circumstances in which their people are placed. Although it is proposed in these pages to keep in view their general influence upon humanity, it is intended more especially to consider their rise and effect upon the population of this country, which is the most particularly affected. But an inquiry is necessary into the rights and obligations of mankind, arising out of their wants, before any views can be stated upon the whole subject that would be comprehensible ; and it will be indispensable for our purpose, before looking further into the tendencies and powers conflicting with those wants, to clear up by all means the origin of the vast resources at man's disposal, and by which he lives, and their apparent intention. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 5 This will involve a study of the agencies through which all the produce of the world is grown and utilized, and a further study of the natural principles upon which that produce should be distributed, having regard to the claims and rights arising from the nature of those agencies respectively, and from the general human wants which constitute their chief purpose, having regard also to the relations of the members of the human race one to the other. By means of an investigation conducted upon these lines we should be in a position to form a judgment of the cases in which the natural prin- ciples of distribution referred to have been deviated from, and misappropriations have occurred which may have led to the distress. But our inquiry will not be then concluded, for the sustenance man requires and depends upon will be insufficient or ample according to the stimulants that may be applied to make his resources productive ; and a most important problem arises thereon, in connec- tion with our subject, viz., what are the proper means of stimulating productiveness ; and whether the principles of distribution, and the claims which appear to arise naturally out of the wants of man- kind, would or would not in their application hinder 6 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND that result? Meanwhile, it must be clear that the knowledge of a certain process adapted for promoting productiveness would not fulfil its object if the knowledge did not include the information necessary for enabling the produce to be fairly available for the general benefit. For increased productiveness, obtained in the interest of a section only, might to some extent be relentlessly created, and a hardship to the remainder of mankind, the latter getting little or nothing by it; or it might be otherwise. Therefore the proper means for pro- moting increased productiveness, and discovering when and where that productiveness is, or is not, for the general advantage, should be made our next study. It is in many instances alleged that the develop- ment of the resources of the world is not carried out to its proper and full extent when they are distributed among mankind according to the natural rights referred to ; and as this statement appears to us to contain the error through which much of the gross and unnatural inequality of condition that exists among men is upheld, and the converse statement seems to be the true one — that is to say, that distribution carried out by IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 7 society, under guidance of those natural rights, would be the most fruitful — it will be necessary not only to go into the nature of those rights, but into the extent and the mode in which they might be best observed. ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND CHAPTER II. Combination of labour with the natural agencies and produce in forming wealth — The foundation of private property. Let us now consider the agencies through which all produce grows and becomes utilized, and by both those means forms wealth. God is the primary cause of all things ; He is lavish in His gifts to mankind through the pro- ductive powers of nature. The land with their sole aid brings forth, as by a magic spell, ever- recurring crops of grass and corn, which are to be seen waving in the valleys, hills, and plains, covering nearly the whole of the earth's surface. Forests grow up and shelter other extensive parts by the same power, and the ocean and other waters simi- larly yield a mass of vegetation hidden from our sight. This vegetable life is ever growing with seed, and decaying, through the seed reproducing and multiplying itself for the maintenance and support of a higher animal life which abounds in the midst IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. g of it. In the bosom of the earth are also minerals, containing properties which are a mystery to man ; and the air combining with the earth and water produces everywhere further stupendous results that it would baffle human efforts to explain. We witness some of them in the furnaces belching forth flames, giving a glow that can be seen miles afar ; in the stream turned off into the mill-race, making the huge wheel of the mill unceasingly revolve ; and in the steam engine working night and day to clear the. foul air from the coal pits or to set in motion a vast machinery. These are all manifestations of nature's powers ; and when man combines his labour with nature he is repaid a hundredfold. By the combination he first of all obtains the vast products of nature's spontaneous growth, which, through labour of the easiest kind, he has simply to gather in order to utilize — such as the grass of the fields, and the timber of the forest. Later on, the seed of wheat which he puts in furrows will grow up into the cornfield, the grass seed he sows will form the meadow, the acorn he deposits in the ground will become the oak ; and through this simple contrivance there will arise, without further action on his part, fresh powers, heaping up production in every direction. lO ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND In fact, all produce, whether we call it wealth or by any other name, is an effect of the natural agencies which are manifested not only in the existence of the original substance, but in the ever- varying forms given to it without other aid, by means of their inherent powers of growth ; and the natural fruits and contents of the earth bear evidence of the fact in the unceasing trans- formation they undergo. We see it in the develop- ment of the seed committed to the earth, growing into a plant first, which brings forth buds to become flowers, and turn into fruit in time, and finally decays in shedding seed the same as that which it sprang from. We see it also in the growth and multiplication of the human and animal races, and in the endless kinds of effects of the various combinations of substances, which are all to be ascribed exclusively to properties in those sub- stances. It is to be noted also that the natural agencies are a sign of only one of the infinite powers of God, and that they give evidence in the general creation and its design of His Omnipotence and Unity. Man is merely a creation of nature, and co- operates with it in turning its produce into use IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. II by labour, which is an exercise of the intellectual and motive powers within and inherent to him, under the guidance of his will — a power also ; the one force generating ideas and design, the others carrying these out by such physical action as he is capable of Labour, when it is applied to another object, may be more expressly defined as the personal act of man, by which he communicates to, and em- bodies in, the object a certain part of the forces within him ; and it forms the foundation of all property estate or lien in an object, and of all right to transfer it ; the act of transfer being a final act of force in the will, by which the object becomes severed from its owner ; but in reality, the transfer can only take effect provided it is made over to one living. This agency is of all importance to man; for though it can bear no comparison with the powers of nature, those powers would be of no use to him unless he co-operated with them. The effects of labour upon those who supply it are often painful, according to the degree in which it is bestowed, and to the dangers attend- ing it. For an illustration, consider the worker in the coal-pits. Some do not see daylight during the winter. Their occupation is unearthly ; they 12 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND go down the pit in that season before the sun rises, and come out after it has set. Besides the inflic- tions of toil, they have the anxiety of risks of explosions at all times, liable to desolate their homes. Think also of the workers at the forges, furnaces, and mills ; of the children at factories. Think of the haggard looks of sempstresses over their work; of the toil of the brain; — they all bespeak exhaustion as the result of labour. We will call, hereafter, the divine agency by the name of nature, or natural powers, and those words will include the land. The human agency, which in the utilization of produce combines with nature, will be called labour. Whatever may be the course of nature under the direction of man, her powers existing irrespec- tive of him, and being intended for the general support of all life, as a gift from providence for that purpose, can belong to no one ; yet they come under a general claim, and are therefore inalien- able ; and any occupancy, possession, estate, or property created by labour, in the land wherein the natural agencies reside, or allowed by social arrangement, can carry with it no right of absolute holding ; the holding of it can only be subject to the general rights in respect of the natural agencies IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 3 or any other rights in it justly acquired, of which we shall have to speak later. The land is distinct from its annual or periodi- cal produce. The former, composed of primitive elements, has a permanent existence; the latter, constituting its growth, is perishable. The land and the natural elements in it represent the main stock whence all proceeds. The produce is a minor stock, and only continuous in existence by the seed, which is the germ of reproduction that it possesses within itself. Human labour may aid natural growth or production by disposition and combination of the original substance, or by the same applied to the produce itself But there is really no growth or absolute produce arising from labour. The most it can effect is to give scope, by disposition of the natural substances, to the action of the properties, which we have seen lie exclusively in them. Still the necessity of the produce for man's subsistence marks it as intended for his personal absolute appropriation, and therein lies the foundation of all his rights of absolute private ownership in produce, provided it is by his labour the produce has been utilized, and he satis- fies all general and other rights in the land from which it may have been derived. Indeed, the most 14 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND important part of labour seems to be in these grounds it gives for the appropriation, Hmited or absolute, of the object it is applied to. Produce, after it has been fashioned, utilized, and appropriated through labour, may be either im- mediately consumed, or stored by its owner, for the purpose of reproduction ; and when it is used in the last-mentioned way, the reproduction is again brought about by a combination of the forces of nature and of man's labour. It is here well to note that the forces of nature in the object reproduced are evidently the absolute property of the owner of the object, after he has satisfied the rights to the land used for its production ; and as the forces residing in the object may give periodical results, he will naturally have a right also periodically to a share of those results, in consideration of the labour originally put in it, leaving the residue of results to the labour actually exercised in obtaining them. And whether the actual division is fair or not will be hereafter looked into. It is important that these remarks as to the productive forces of nature and the effect of their being turned to use by the co-operation therewith of labour should be thoroughly understood, for a correct apprehension of what will follow. They IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 5 amount to this : that all substance and growth are of nature's creation, through distinct powers, which exist independently of man ; and that those powers can only be utilized by man on his applying his labour to them. And it follows from the evident independent creation and action of nature, that the land in which the powers rest is no one's abso- lutely, but from the supplies it yields, corresponding with man's general wants, that it is intended for all ; therefore that man collectively, or mankind, only have an absolute right in the land and its original powers ; but that, individually, man is entitled to the produce of the combination of his labour with the land in utihzing its forces, after satisfying all collective and other rights therein ; and that the right to the produce of his labour would be in absolute property, as it would not have been available in any case, and in some cases would not even have existed, but for his exertions. And this absolute property would be in the produce in its twofold aspect of being consumed or reserved, or applied for purposes of reproduction, when it is called stock. Each individual has, therefore, evidently an absolute right or property in the produce and its seed, and in the reproducing agency existing in the latter, when lawfully pro- 1 6 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND cured by his labour, or transferred — for nothing could be said if, in the first instance, he had con- sumed the object , altogether. But although there can be no absolute property of land, there would be created an estate in it by the man first exerting himself upon it for useful purposes, to the extent of the labour he had employed thereon, subject to the general rights referred to. The action of nature independently of man is probably infinite. It is certainly beyond his apprehension. Pages would have to be extracted from the "Lectures on Natural Philosophy," in order to show the properties it possesses, amongst which the most impressive are the forces of gravitation and of heat ; but they would not explain growth and life, which are the most wonderful of its works. It is important to note for the object of this inquiry, that the operations of human labour can be limited only by man's powers, and by the resources of nature being partially at his disposal. It remains for us to explain from the preceding statements, the relation in which men stand one to the other. It is exemplified, firstly, by their common wants, and their absolute dependence upon nature for the supplies necessary to satisfy them, and by a common right in regard to those IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1/ supplies ; secondly, by the universal necessity for men to labour in order to provide and utilize sup- plies, by their mutual and relative dependence for the means of doing so, and by their personal rights of property arising in the objects upon which that labour has been bestowed. It is the consciousness of these relations by the light of their intelligence, which has caused mankind to unite into a state of society for their protection by institutions and laws ; and here we see the foundation of all political rights, which, as laid down by such laws, should be in conformity with all natural laws, as far as circumstances will admit. ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND CHAPTER III. Classification of sources of wealth, and of the. people owning it. Having considered generally the main social and political laws under which society has become constituted for self-protection, we now propose passing on to a review of the actual relations in life and circumstances of the people of our country, in order to judge whether the state of their population may or may not be attributable to some great divergence in practice from those laws, and to the hindrance it has caused in the operation of the minor economic laws, of which the observance also is so essential for a country's welfare. . For the appreciation of the facts, a definition of some of the words which will principally occur becomes necessary, viz. : — Wealth, means possession of articles in demand. Value, means price of exchange. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 19 Money, means the metallic wealth used as medium of exchange. There are other words which will be brought in, such as capital, rent, interest, and labour ; but the definition of these will be given as the subjects occur. Having admitted that the sources of all wealth are nature's powers in the land, and labour — in which latter is included capital — we must here remark that to confine the classification of those sources under the abstract terms of land, labour, and capital, and then to simply call sections of society by these terms, assuming with no more to do in the matter the identity of the owners with their property, the absolute inviolability and imprescriptibility of their acts of possession, would be to begin with an incomplete statement, leaving out of consideration the individuals concerned as creators and consumers of, and even drawbacks to, the wealth, which must lead to misconception of the proper end which should be held in view, which is the satisfaction of the human rights and wants, and to error as to the means by which that end should be attained. To argue upon such mere terms would be to narrow the inquiry to one as to the best means simply of increasing wealth, with- out reference to that of its legitimate ownership, 20 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND and, "consequently, its proper distribution for the common requirements, for the further stimulating- pf the producing powers, and eliminating all the eletoents that act as a check upon their action ; and the conclusion would be simply what is seen- in practice, viz., that labour should be used in such manner as to produce most at the least possible cost to those holding the other factors of prO' duction, which amounts in other words to this : that the masses affording their labour should be made to work cheap, and be treated as machines, and even' put out of all consideration if they can be dispensed with for the benefit of those in possession, whether the latter can show title or not to their holdings. A conclusion most unjust, for let the sources of wealth be divided in whatever categories we like, there should also be looked in the face the drawbacks to it, and circumstances of its possession. Undue possession means a wrong, and an infliction by some on others ; and the continuance of such a wrong must mean also its development with increase of population. We must, therefore, as we proceed, consider all parties in the relation they hold to their possessions, and one to the other ; and unless this is made distinct it will be needless to- hope for any useful result from an inquiry into such a matter as is here treated. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 21 A proper classification of the sources of wealth would be a general one : first, land ; and Second, labour ; and under the last term would come the people — the people affording their labour either with or without the advantage of possession of produce, which would be used as capital. People with possessions in land, and receiving rent for the same, and contributing no labour, form a separate class. They subtract from the general wealth, inasmuch as they are simply consumers, and the reproduction they live by would continue without them. The owner of stored produce, or capital, who does not labour, and makes profit, neverthe- less, out of it, forms also a separate class ; we propose, therefore, viewing throughout as distinct the landowner and the land, and the owner of capital and the capital itself. The classification of the agencies through which wealth is produced would, therefore, be as follows : — First, Land. Second, Labour. And the term Labour would comprise : — First : Labourers with stored produce ; in other words, capi- talists. Owners of stored produce, aiding in reproduction from which they derive a share. 22 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND Second : Labourers without stored Affording their labour only, for which they are in receipt of wages or an without stored r receipt ot wages or an produce. equivalent, when they can ' procure employment. These categories of people will be taken in the following order : — Firstly, will come the landowner in his relation to the land and rent; secondly, the capitalist in his relation to capital and the profits therefrom ; and lastly, the man who in the condition of possessing neither land nor capital receives wages only for his labour. And the in- vestigation will, as a matter of course, take in all rights under each position. The labourer, being an agent of production, will be identified with the term labour. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 23 CHAPTER IV. The owner of land in relation to the land and its rent. Rent of land, according to the general definition, is a periodical payment for the use of any land held by another ; and the origin of that payment must be traced by reference to the history of land tenures, before we can have a fair appreciation of the justice with which it is claimed and made. The consideration will be confined to the land holdings in England. Passing by the time when the population, moving from place to place with their flocks and herds, lived chiefly on flesh and milk, we arrive at the period of the conquest of Britain by Csesar, when the Roman settlers introduced the practice of agriculture, and employed the native population as bondsmen to cultivate the soil. No fixity of tenure can, however, be traced at that period. It is only clearly established that property then 24 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND was taken over without payment and by the sword — the conqueror reducing to slavery a portion of the primitive population. In the Anglo-Saxon age, after the retirement of the Romans, when Britain came under a fresh batch of conquerors, the land system and division of classes are more marked. The village com- munity can be traced to it. It consisted originally of a society of conquerors, the principal of whom made allotments of land in a district to themselves, and passed them on to their descendants, part of the land remaining common property. The pro- perty taken by the chiefs was assumed perpetual freehold, and was called Bocland ; the Folcland was the term for the other land. It was occupied as common, or parcelled out to individuals for a term, on expiration of which it reverted to the State. Bocland was ultimately confirmed in pos- session by the king; the right was founded on a tacit and implied consent that the first occupant under conquest should be the owner. Such tenure of land has received the name of Allodium. Under the Anglo-Saxons, the people ranked in the following order : — 1. Ealdormen. Noblemen possessing 2000 acres. 2. Thanes. „ „ 500 acres. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 25 .3. Churls. Freemen, but not independent free- holders. They cultivated the lands of the lord on which they were bound to reside. Two- fifths of the population were registered as churls in Domesday Book, and they became villeins. 4. Serfs. Captive Celts, one-tenth of the registered population. Gibbon, in his " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," gives the following account of the Anglo- Saxon conquests : — "Conquest has never appeared more dreadful and destructive than in the hands of the Saxons, who hated the valour of their enemies, disdained the faith of treaties, and violated, without remorse the most sacred objects of the Christian worship. The fields of battle might be traced almost in every district, by monuments of bones ; the frag- ments of falling towers were stained with blood ; the last of the Britons, without distinction of age or sex, was massacred in the ruins of Anderida ; and the repetition of such calamities was frequent and familiar under the Saxon heptarchy. The arts and religion, the laws and language, which the Romans had so carefully planted in Britain, 26 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND were extirpated by their barbarous successors. . . . After the sanguinary barbarians had secured their dominion, and gratified their revenge, it was their interest to presei-ve the peasants, as well as the cattle, of the unresisting country. In each suc- cessive revolution, the patient herd becomes the property of its new masters ; and the salutary compact of food and labour is silently ratified by their mutual necessities." The conquest of England by the Normans, which resulted in the complete subjugation of the Anglo- Saxons, was characterized by worse acts. Confis- cations took place immediately, in order to gratify the Norman army. " The English were successively deprived of their offices, and their exclusion from political privileges was accompanied with such a confiscation of property as never had proceeded from any government. In twenty years from the accession of William I., almost the whole soil of England had been divided among foreigners. Of the former proprietors many had perished in the scenes of rapine and tyranny which had attended this convulsion, many were fallen in the utmost, poverty; a few, certainly, still held their lands as- dependents of chief lords, and several sought refuge abroad. Besides these severities, two instances of IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 2/ the conquerors' unsparing cruelty are well known — the devastation of the whole country between the Tyne and the Humber, which laid it desolate for ten years, and that of the New Forest, followed by the cruel Forest Laws. . . . And the fruits of their ruinous oppression may be deduced from the com- parative condition of the English towns in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and at the compila- tion of Domesday, scarcely any one failing to exhibit marks of a decayed population" (Hallam). The first act of the Norman conqueror was to claim allegiance from all, and to usurp the exclusive right of disposal of the land. All Eng- land was regarded as the demesne of the king,, held under him by feudal tenure, which gradually superseded allodium. Folcland disappeared except in a few commons, and there arose two distinct tenures of land throughout the kingdom : the feudal or beneficiary, and the tributary or servile. The feudal or beneficiary consisted of possessions granted by the king, subject to military services and under this head has to be added subinfeudal, for military assistance to the holders of the fiefs. In this change most of the Anglo-Saxon manors were bestowed upon Normans, and only a few of the original Saxon tenures survived as socage 28 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND tenures; and the churl, gradually disappearing, became the degraded villein attached to the soil, and working the tributary lands. The grants of fiefs were chiefly governed by the king's caprice, and future generations were mulcted in large amounts, by alienations in that way of vast territories. Pro- vinces fell to the lot of many of the feoffees, and the obligation put upon the holding was military service for the king's or higher lords' wants. For some time the grants continued to be at the royal pleasure, and were at first liable to confiscation at his will. This was the feudal system, but it marked in its abuses the dawn of a series of obligations in the possession of land. After a course of changes of custom and laws, however, these holders were but nominally under the king, and they became in the reign of Charles II. virtually the owners of the soil allotted to them ; and they used it, including its vast products of spontaneous growth, released altogether from the burden of liability for military service and all other obligations. These possessions, which often the eye could not take within its range, passed to their successors under laws which have secured their perpetuation in a few families, with an imprescriptible right vested in them to keep people off. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 29 The tenants cultivating the tributary lands, who were descendants of enfranchised villeins, received for their work a share of the produce, which varied according to circumstances ; the general and uniform tendency of which was to press upon the tenant, and to make capital out of his labour for the benefit of the lord. In the proportion retained by the lord we see the first apparition of what is called rent ; and the position of the lord has not altered since, except in this, that the soil is now generally worked by labour on wages, and the tenant in appropriating the produce pays the rent in money. We have shown that in the land there exists independently of any exertion by man the incom- parable agency of nature, which is the source of all produce. The rent is made up, including nearly everything that can represent nature's share in the production ; but in feudal times an acknow- ledgment was given of this act of nature by ser- vices. When these gradually and ultimately expired, the rent became subject only to nominal taxes, and the lord might, if he had only land enough, live by the means of that rent without any exertion ; and he might even go on accumu- lating riches by the rent in a prolonged revelry 30 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND and sleep; but it is often made higher, and claimed for improved productiveness in the soil through the tributary's exertions as v/ell Going back to our past observations, it will be found proved that in regard to the land as con- taining the primitive agencies of nature, mankind has a collective right ; and that the additions to its productiveness, and the produce it is made to bring forth by the labour of man are the property of the individual obtaining those results through his work, subject to his satisfying the collective right before referred to. It will be seen that rent, from what has been just stated, is not governed in practice by those considerations. The share produced from the land by natural agencies, and the further share from increased productiveness have almost entirely gone to the presumed owner since the feudal times ; and as a rule, the total which represents the rent is regulated solely by the productiveness of the land, the amount allowed for the tributary remaining stationary at the amount which it is thought his profits should reach to enable him to carry on the work, and sometimes in the case of rack-renting being considerably short of that ; and the effect by the owner is the almost total abstraction from the masses of any share in the natural agencies, to IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 3 1 ■which they are entitled under their collective rights, and an undue diminution of the profit from the improvements and produce to which the individual has a claim. And as there is scarcely any purpose on earth connected with production for which land is not wanted, the item of rent forms a very heavy one in nearly all charges for produce, and it presses most severely upon the important agency of labour. In fact, the recipient of rent being under only a nominal obligation of tax with reference to the natural agencies, forms that separate class already alluded to as subtracting from the general wealth, in contradistinction from the labour which adds to it. In the works of eminent economists there is -given the law of rent. But their statements do not appear to be much more than an attempt at record of the justice and the uniform tendency of circum- stances, under our present condition, against the absorption in the rent, of any portion of the produce from the land which would trench upon the means required to be reseived by the tenant for his sub- sistence and for working the land. And this is certainly a law that cannot be transgressed ; but the statement of it in shape of formula seems to be of little use to us in this investigation ; it is only a record of the limits which the owner receiving 32 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND rent should not exceed for his own interest and safety. The right of the owner to only a part of the rent, or all, is not touched by the state- ments. So we may dismiss it as not affecting our inquiry. It is evident that . whatever glimmering of reasoning may appear in the principle upon which property was attempted- to be founded under the two conquests, its partition was wanton in the extreme, and all rights of the individual and the community were overrun and violated in the first instance. Thousands were dispossessed of the fruits of their labour, reduced to slavery, and succeeded in the enjoyment of their produce by parties who had contributed nothing towards it. And the conquests were further characterized by proceedings of the most tyrannical and cruel nature, through a long course of devastation, bloodshed, and outrage. Although the principles stated as constituting the true foundation of estate in land and property or produce are not acted upon in our society, they are to a considerable extent accepted in some form or other by philosophers and jurists; and when, people scoff at those principles, they place them- selves at variance with the most enlightened men. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 33 Paley, speaking of what the right of private property in land is founded upon, virtually accepts the principle of a collective right on the part of mankind in it, and infers from the fact of each man's limbs and labour being his own exclusively, that by occupying a piece of land he inseparably uses his labour with it, by which means the piece of ground becomes thenceforward his own, as it cannot be taken from him without depriving him at the same time of something which is indisputably his. In this inference he assumes that labour must be bestowed upon the land to become his property ; and the solution is also Locke's ; but Paley adds that it will not hold good in the manner it has been applied, of taking a ceremonious possession of land by erecting a standard, or setting up a landmark, or digging a ditch, or planting a fence around it ; and that the cleaning, manuring, and ploughing of a field cannot give the first occupier a right to it in perpetuity, after this cultivation and all effects of it have ceased. He shows also that nature points out that equal distribution is not, however, in- tended ; and Hume adds, that such equality is not practicable, and says that all questions of property are subordinate to the authority of the law, the object of which is to promote the general interests of D 34 ON LAND' CONCENTRATION AND society by justice, leaving the terms it prescribes open to discussion in relation to the circumstances which it is intended to meet. J. J. Rousseau writes as follows : — "' For authorizing the right of first occupier upon a piece of land, the following conditions are necessary: firstly, that no one should have dwelt in it previously ; secondly, that no one should occupy more than the quantity he wants for sub- sistence ; thirdly, that possession should not be taken by a vain ceremony, but by labour and cultivation, which are the only signs of property, in the absence of judicial title, which should be respected." He adds later on : " In whatever manner the acquisition may have been made, the rights of each in his own property should be sub- ordinate to any collective rights of the community over the whole." The law in all matters is, of course, as a rule accepted for the sake of peace ; but as it varies in an excessive degree from time to time, and between places, the natural inference is that it is constantly framed to some extent under error as to the cir- cumstances which it is intended to meet, and that, therefore, it is a proper subject to discuss with a View to modification. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 35 We must admit that in the changes of the law, though some have been iniquitous, its tendency generally is to promote that justice which should be its object and end. And we see in the books of jurists proofs of the gradual enlightenment in their mind, by their first enactments-, that are barbarous, to later ones that are reasonable ; and in no question is this progress more shown, or more conspicuous, than in this very question of the land, though constant mistakes have been, and are being made respecting it. For what does the law of England at the present day state .-" The following are extracts from a valuable* handbook on the laws relating to property : — " I. No man is in law the absolute owner of lands. He can only hold an estate or right in them which the jurisprudence of a country creates. "2. The Queen is lady paramount, either mediate or immediate, of all and every parcel of land within the realm ; which power can only be exercised through Parliament. The legislature representing the nation." The ancient ownership was allodium — that is to say, absolute — under the Anglo-Saxons. The sys- tem has proved fatal to the permanence of every * Beeton's. 36 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND nation which adopted it. The feudal tenure with mutual obligation superseded it at the time of the Norman conquest, and to some extent was based upon the idea of national ownership, its object being union of interests for self-defence. But the theory that land was held under the Crown was anciently- acted upon in practice with great freedom by the kings ; and, unfortunately, they made no distinction between what was their own and the lands they held in trust for the country. Hence the counter-movement on the part of the king's vassals — the barons occupying large tracts of the land, which, resulting in the grant by the king of Magna Charta, checked finally those regal abuses. Meanwhile the centralization of the land in their own hands had become the deliberate plan of the barons. The efforts of the legislature were, how- ever, chiefly for justice, though its acts were neither well calculated nor well advised. The Act de Bonis, the Quia Emptores Act, and the Law of Mortmain (all Acts of Edward I.'s reign), the Statute of Uses and the Legislation of Wills of Land (Acts of the reign of Henry VHI.), were of this character, to which reference will again be made hereafter, in explanation of them. Though intended for the public good, they were turned to IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 37 account by the barons and their successors, who used them in instituting entails and settlements of the land, which gradually furthered their plan ; till at last, by legislative means of glaring partiality to the class, all the ancient dues in consideration of their holding the land from the Crown were abolished by Cromwell, and Cromwell's ordinance was embodied afterwards in the Act which was passed in the first year of the Restoration of Charles II. (1660), granting final extinction of them, and, with the ancient laws and customs of primo- geniture, entail, and settlement, that Act forms the basis of the present tenure of land in fee simple in England. The provision is as follows : — "Act 12, Cas. II. c. 24, 1st year of Restoration : — " That the Court of Wards and Liveries, and all Wardships, Liveries, feudal seizins and Ouster lemaun, values and forfeitures of marriages by reason of any tenure of the King or others, be totally taken away. And that all fines for alienatiofis, tenures by hotnage. King's service and escuage, and also aids for marrying the daughter or knighting the son, and all tenures of the King in Capite be taken away. And that all sorts of tenures held by the King or others be turned into fee and common socage. Save only tenures in Frankalmoyn copyholds, and tJie honorary tenures 38 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND {without the slavish parts) of grand Sergeantry" In the same year, in order to make good the loss to the State from the extinction of those dues, Excise Duties were permanently imposed upon the people. Briefly, the history of the law shows, that with the dawn of reason the land was assumed to be held from the king as representing God and the people, subject to certain obligations on the part of the holders ; that the kings abused their privileges, and that afterwards, through a course of changes, the theory has subsisted to the present day in even a more perfect form, whilst the obligations on the holders have in practice gradually ceased ; and too much stress cannot be laid upon this anomaly of the law. Therein we see proof of coexistence of a general tendency towards justice on the part of society, and that of a power opposing it for personal ends, oftenest successful in modifying the law for those ends, and when not thus successful, making it suit in practice where it can. From the foregoing statement, the relation in which the landowner stands as regards his land would be generally under title founded on con- quest or favour in the first place, and his income from it consists of its produce, which, after allowing IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 39 for the labour exerted upon it, would in the net represent merely the share that capital and nature have had in its production ; and this net amount constitutes the rent. Therefore, in the cases in which land-holdings have been perpetuated with- out labour or capital being applied to them by the owners, the title, can be of only a conventional character — and these are the circumstances under which nearly all the larger estates are held in this country. 40 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND CHAPTER V. The owner of capital in relation to his capital and the profits from it. Having dealt with the position of the landowner in his relation to the land and its rents, we have now to take the case of people receiving profit from employment of capital, and wages in return for their labour. But in connection with the remarks about to be made, it must be assumed although much capital has been made out of labour, and has been absorbed by the recipients of rent, that such capital is only in the hands of those who provided the labour or their lawful assigns — this for the sake of clearness, but the general fact must be borne in mind notwith- standing as regards the recipient of rent, that the larger portion of the existing capital has been created by labour which was not his, and that it has passed as his own to his successors. The people receiving interest and wages, and IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 41 who are named firstly and secondly under the head of labour in the classification, come properly under one head — that of labourers ; with this difference in the appropriation of the results of their work — that while some appropriate the same in immediate consumption, others store a portion for the purpose of reproduction, or apply it thus, in all cases only consuming the object re- produced through its means. The results im- mediately taken over for consumption have no particular name ; the results stored by for repro- duction are in their immense variety called capital. These results we have proved to be the absolute property of the labourer, after he has satisfied the collective rights in the land from which they have been obtained ; and we have shown the pressure exercised in practice upon him by the claimants to the land. It is to be noted that the products stored contain properties of nature, in seed especially, and otherwise, and that by the application of further labour to them, results or further products are obtained periodically similar to the first results. This is most important to observe in dealing with the question of labour. It shows that there must be two different effects from the labourer electing 42 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND either to consume absolutely all his products, or to store a portion for reproduction, consuming only the results from it in reproduction. The owner of the stored produce naturally claims a share in the reproduction, whether he applies more labour to the first article or not, when he is not paid in full for the first results. He had a right to consume the produce in the first instance, and as the community would not have had the benefit of it if his labour had not brought it forth, he has a further right to a share in the reproduction. This share is represented by a deduction from the periodical reproduction, as the profit on the stored produce, after satisfying the landowner's claim to rent, and is commonly called interest, though sometimes for use of buildings it is called rent. There are certain stated laws of nature, which are defined in the books of economists, as to this interest in its relation to rent of land, and to the residuum of reproduction after meeting the demands of rent and interest, which residuum is called wages ; but these statements answer no useful purpose, for they are merely a record of a law in the disposition of man, which is to make the most interest he can, and which he does often to the extent of IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 43 usury, as the recipient of rent does to the extent of rack-renting ; and while the rent presses generally upon labour, the labourer owning the stored produce presses upon the labourer who only gets wages in working it ; for the interest appropriated as profit on stored products, and on reproduction from them, increases according to their actual productiveness. Capital is generally understood to be wealth in course of exchange — a surplus not intended for consumption, but for reproduction — and is repre- sented by seed, tools, buildings, money, everything that may be conceived to have been produced by labour, combined with nature's agency, for the purpose of reproduction. As stated before, this interest is the right of the labourer who produced or acquired the capital, and capital itself is a most important factor, to which mankind is much in- debted. It is by his skill, industry, perseverance and thrift, that capital exists ; it is indispensable for the foundation of undertakings, and the re- muneration he is entitled to for it, is of the highest class. By the pressure he exercises on the lower section of labour through it, the share he gets, however, is often too great. But the argument that the man owning land unjustly keeps away those 44 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND wanting it, does not apply to the owner of capital, or the industry in which it may be invested. For capital is the owner's absolute property, by right of labour bestowed in producing it, to consume as he pleases, and only the dictates of charity could induce him to part with it. We trace the origift of the capitalist to the burgesses and enfranchised bondmen, who, through opportunity of exchange, and by their skill, were enabled to save out of the produce of their inde- pendent labour or capital. From the foregoing we find that the owner of stored produce or capital, used for purposes of reproduction, stands in relation to. it as absolute owner, and that his means consist, in the stored produce itself, and the net supplies periodically reproduced from it, after allowing for the rights in the land and the labour used in procuring them ; and this net reproduction constitutes his profit. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 45 CHAPTER VI. Tile labourer in relation to liis work and the wages he gets for it — View of the social and political state of his case. In reference to the condition of the other class of labourer, viz., that which consumes the produce of his work, and has no store for reproduction, it will be necessary to remember that the commence- ment of all labour was without stores, and that labour is the utilizer, with the aid of nature's powers, of all that we possess. Its first application was made upon objects of spontaneous growth in the wild woods and pastures of the world, and the gathering of these was the only reward for the pains and the risks it was exposed to ; and as far as the improvements in the soil were effected through its agency, the value of them became the property of the man that afforded that labour. As he proceeded with his work he lived by some of the fruit that he gathered, and he stored some of it for reproduction, and at the proper time, 46 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND periodically, afterwards, he tilled the soil, and he deposited the seed from the fruit into the soil, and reproduced by that means the seed in unusual quantities; and the result of this process was a return which yielded food for his daily wants, and a store for satisfying future wants. This was the origin of wages and capital ; and as represent- ing the combination of man's labour with nature's powers, this result was subject to a deduction due to mankind for the share in the production, on account of those wonderful powers which could, of course, only be utilized by that labour. The object reared for consumption and stored for reproduc- tion, and the soil from which they are raised, include all that is of substantial value in this world. They are brought forth and utilized by no other than labour. It is that labour that keeps up the productive powers of the land ; that pro- duces, and afterwards sustains, capital; and rent and interest are simply later effects of these ; in fact, it is labour that does everything done by man, and it represents in this country, at the present time, in income alone, an annual gross sum of ;£■ 1, 200,000,000. We have seen that by favourable opportunities and ability a certain portion of the class under IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 47 consideration came to own the stored produce. It was the absence of those advantages, and the hard circumstances of their case, that created the land- less and houseless position of the residuum of the class, or wage class, who constitute by far the vaster proportion of those who labour. It is most important to note that the proper term for labourer in receipt of wages is hireling. The existence of that class is tO' be traced to about the time of Edward III., when the churl and slave of the Saxon — afterwards reduced to the villein, and counting thousands of the population — became free to give their services to whom they chose for a sum. It is also well to remember that the condition of the villeins originated in the act of appropriation of their persons by the conquerors, who at the same time seized the land. This dependent class were adrift at the period of the enfranchisement, without any stores of nature to work upon, and their consequent indigent position was abused by the recipients of rent and the owners of stored produce, who pressed upon them to the utmost. The labourers without possessions of the present day, are in precisely the same position as those hirelings or transformed villeins. Yet to say that that class as a whole are in receipt of 48 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND wages is an imperfect statement. It is more true to say that they are all dependent upon wages for their living, and that the dependence is so precarious that thousands cannot obtain a living through the wages they get ; and these latter form, with the receivers of rent, a heavy item as simple consumers, abstracting from the general wealth. The explanation of the prevailing distress and want among labourers is in the stores of nature being only partially available to them through the land being locked up. Labour, under the present sj'stem, is limited in this country not so much by want of capital and deficient natural resources of the soil, as by the requirements of the owner of that soil ; and the fewer the owners the less will be their requirements, which, at the best, can be small in the aggregate as to necessaries of life. Truly most owners go in for indulgences as well, and to provide these affords employment also ; but when necessities and indulgences are satisfied there can be no further resource for employment under them, and the dormant powers of nature are made to lie fallow, while many who might live and create capital by combining their labour with those powers, simply vegetate. Labour's field is evidently in the stores of IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 49 nature,* and it is futile to speak of its being limited by capital, which is its own produce. Capital, like all produce, is only a form of mani- festation of labour in the natural substances, and what difference there is between the stored objects it makes up and those that come to be actually consumed to maintain life, is simply in the mode and result of their application. In confirmation of these statements, it is shown that capital in addition to its being the effect of the exercise of labour in combination with nature, is further sustained by such continued combina- tion ; for when labour bestows itself on the store, it instantly raises the value of it, out of which value its wages are paid, and another article for deferred consumption is being gradually produced from it ; and the substitution often takes place before the labourer gets any wages at all. There are considerable definitions also of laws of wages, showing how these are generally and should be apportioned in regard to rent of land and profits from capital ; but apart from the fact that there is truthfully set forth in them that labour and the form it takes in industry require absolutely to be supported to some extent — to * See Appendix A. E so ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND exist, which is very much in practice a guide of conduct, there is nothing in them more than a rule for people singly — for each to take the greatest advantage possible of others in their dealings, in obedience to the natural appetites for gain and possessions, regardless of the main laws created by the human wants, to be appreciated only by the reasoning faculties, which prescribe for the protection of those wants, and the restraint of those appetites — the combination of the collective forces and wisdom of society. And this view is derived from the wrong basis stated for those defi- nitions, which is that rent, interest, and wages are simply deductions from the laws of just and rational competition. Now it is clear that this basis has been laid down from an oversight in not perceiving that while demand for commodities is made under fair competition, the supply of them is, on the other hand, either directly or indirectly, a matter of monopoly, through their being chiefly obtained from the raw material out of the land, which is in the hands of a few — a monopoly only checked as yet by our foreign exchanges, through the effects of free trade, so far as it is being carried out with other countries, and which is most unjust. To sum up the foregoing remarks upon the class IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 5 1 of labourer without possession : the margin allowed for his work by the landowner in collection of his rent, and by the capitalist in appropriating his net profits is about what those two classes choose to allow him. His condition, so generally characterized by want and precariousness, followed upon the con- quest of the country, which reduced the prede- cessors in their sphere of life to an abject state of dependence, permanently aggravated by the fact of the land of the conquered dominions being originally nearly all appropriated to the few who were the chiefs among them. The chiefs claimed lands in their possession, under first occupancy, which were of an unreasonable extent, and quite beyond their ability to deal with ; and their successors subsequently claimed all the periodical produce from them, without making any but a nominal allowance in the end for the share of nature in bringing it forth ; and both claims have been allowed. These acts of appropriation interfered with the relation of mankind to the natural agencies and supplies in which all have a right. They dis- turbed the relations of its members one to the other, as regards the rights of property created between them by their labour ; and, on the whole, they pre- vented that distribution of the land and its produce 52 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND which is intended by Providence for man's wants and to which he is entitled by the rights referred to. It was from these circumstances that the monopoly ensued both of the land and its produce. It was systematically intensified by the successful efforts of the higher classes in the holding together of their estates, in their assumption of political authority, in their relieving themselves from the chief State burthens, in their imposition of pro- tective duties, and the passing of laws generally in their own interest, which measures had all the effect of enabling them to fix wages at their low scale, and to raise their rents to a rate that forced up prices of produce to a degree that would scarcely admit, in most cases, of the labourer who worked the produce or was liable for the rent, doing more than keep soul and body together. And it is owing chiefly to the subjection and helplessness brought about among the masses by this monopoly, that the other existing one, of capital, has attained its present development. The result speaks for itself as one of imperfect political institutions, not only a result of error in judgment, but one intended against the people whose very interest the institutions should promote. The chief sufferers belong to the lower stratum IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 53 of the population ; the cases of robbery and larceny that come before our Law Courts are mostly cases of people of that class, arising from their condition of distress and want. They are on the whole the cause of the greater part of our judicial appoint- ments, and of the measures found necessary for immuring the enemies of society, showing a source of danger among a large class who, under better and proper circumstances, should prove an addition to its forces. 54 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND CHAPTER VII. Concentration of property in the land as basis of the Constitution — Development of landed estates (realty) under concentration — Contrasted with rise and progress of capital (personalty) under distribution. There appears scarcely any ground for doubt that the unsatisfactory working of the country's political institutions as regards the condition and well-being of vast multitudes of its population, must have arisen from the concentration of the land at various points in the hands of a few families, which was effected first by violent usurpa- tion, forming subsequently the permanent basis of of its constitution ; and the particulars required in support of this view we will now endeavour to bring forward generally. It was necessary after the devastation caused by the conquest, for the safety of its authors, that they should prepare against the rebellion which was sure to arise on the part of those whom they had despoiled. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 55 William I. and the Norman followers among whom he had partitioned nearly all the land of the kingdom, were the principal invaders, and they soon saw the necessity of combining to defend them- selves. By territorial right annexed to their lands those chiefs attended the king's grand council, and practically, though not always through the same form of appointment, both their political power and estate passed afterwards by inheritance to their descendants ; and one of the earliest acts of the first chiefs was to bind themselves together in a common interest for their mutual protection. The oath of fealty the king received from the chiefs at Salisbury, twenty years after the Conquest, en- forcing their direct homage to him in return for his protection of their holdings was the expedient used. This bond of union was intended in a measure for national defence and to check the encroachments of royalty, as well as all mutinous proceedings on the part of chiefs; but its principal object was to subdue any rising of the aggrieved people. It was, in fact, chiefly a contrivance of conquest, having in view the aim of all conquests in semi-barbarous times, viz., the general plunder of the vanquished, and their subjection in the interest of the conquerors. It was the league of a class become all at once a S6 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND territorial aristocracy — not even extended to those in a condition of serfdom under it — which, in fear of a common danger from the subdued people it had wronged, became united to a man against it. Nations in a loose state of society, corrupt, un- principled, and undisciplined, are liable to be over- come, rightly or wrongly, by other nations ; and it seems a wise dispensation of providence that there should be always the danger of such occurrences, keeping nations alive to the necessity of guarding against degeneracy. And it is further only natural and logical that conquerors should assert their rule by vigorous measures, specially directed against the opposition to it, which, as a matter of course, would be manifested for some time to come. But this can give no excuse for the continuance of such measures, even assuming their severity to have been no gi-eater at the time than was required. On the contrary, justice and common sense dictate their gradual relaxation, and the substitution of a new basis of government, rectifying as much as possible their severe effects, as soon as order has become established. In the case of the Norman conquest, however much the vanquished may have laid themselves open to it by internal divisions and weakness, IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 5/ the conduct of the invaders was wanton and horrible in the extreme, making it the more im- perative that the rule they had established should be promptly reformed. But what do we see among us? With the difference that the land and power, which were centralized in the king and the territorial chiefs at first, have passed almost entirely into the hands of the latter, we see still, after a lapse of centuries, precisely the same contrivance in force on the part of the same class who subscribed the oath. Although the nation has settled down long ago into a perfect state of society and order, and although society has extended the advantages gained by its formation to all parties, including the class in question, the class exists still, with the land and power centralized in its hands as before — in the same league against the people, for the same ancient object of its subjection ; and instead of the centralization being relaxed by counteracting measures, it is intensified through all sorts of con- trivances, against which the people are apparently helpless. It is impossible, on an impartial study of the development of our constitution, not to admire the gradual formation of the estate of the realm, 58 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND which more particularly represents the middle and lower classes of the people, and appears to satisfactorily provide for the balance of power that is so essential between all those who have a share in government ; and the great triumphs that have been achieved through the efforts of that estate in the cause of personal liberty, the effect of which has been to vindicate many rights and to secure a voice to every one in all political matters, must tend much to create an impression favourable to the constitution. But in pressing the inquiry further in the same spirit, it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that with some good in effect, there is much good only in appear- ance. The benefits secured, such as they are, outside of the general state of liberty mentioned, have been almost exclusively in the interest of the higher middle class, who have succeeded in rivalling, by acquired wealth of personalty, the territorial aristocracy. For the lower order of the population, there has been scarcely any sub- stantial advantage obtained ; and except in foreign trade, which has brought down the prices of some home supplies, they have gained no liberty worth speaking of Although a numerous class, they are still in a general state of dependence upon the IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 59 few in whose hands the land of the country and its spontaneous produce are centralized, for the material necessary for them to work upon and subsist by. In fact, the institution of a class in power, with all the resources of the land in its hands answering the purpose of a stronghold for self-defence and the subjection of others, was at the first only a precaution of warfare in days of comparative law- lessness. No one was bound morally in obedience to it, except the few who were enrolled as its members, and it could have, rationally, no claim to survive the state of disorder and tendency to rebellion it was formed against, and which was really much of its own creation. Taken by itself, that institution does not deserve the name of civil government — the form all nations tend to, and all administrations are beholden of; nor can it be the effect of civil government, which is only binding upon its members through its being the appointment of the citizens socially combined. And it so outweighs all other powers, that no institutions can be considered to exist with it, and at the same time carry out fully the principles and aims of civil government, which are to serve and adjust matters as nearly and justly as possible 6o ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND in the interest of all. It is as unsuited for civi- lization, although in another way, as the form of authority existing in the days of Abraham or Adam. It was necessary for our purpose to enter upon the review of the original foundation of our con- stitution, and the course through which our institu- tions making it up in their present state, are connected with it ; and to do this it was in- dispensable that we should look into the facts of history, which must be our excuse for having presented here so much from its pages, that would appear to many most elementary. We shall have now to describe more especially the course of history of our landed estates under the principle of their concentration, and of their dependents, contrasting with their condition the development of personalty under the laws of distribution among those who, in their enfran- chised state, succeeded in laying the foundation of capital for themselves ; and later on, a fuller explanation will be given of the process by which the concentration of estates, with power over their dependents, came to be gradually confirmed and intensified contrarily to political right as well as all others, and allusion will be necessary to IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 6 1 some facts already stated in dealing with these matters. It will be scarcely necessary to go back much to events specially connected with the foundation of landed estates prior to the conquest of England by the Normans. Before that, the Anglo-Saxons, chiefs of the subdued race, were independent possessors of the soil which they had parcelled out among themselves ; and their dependents, known by the names of churls and slaves, culti- vated it. No evidence appears as to the ceremony of fealty and privileges of the feudal systems amongst them ; but tenures of that system became thoroughly established in England under the reign of the Norman conqueror ; and as the present political and social condition of England, its landed estates, and even the families residing upon them, can be traced as connected with the period of that conquest and its systems, our further statements will begin with that period. We have sufficiently touched upon the outrages that occurred under the Saxon and Norman conquests not to bring up any further particulars relating to that early state of things, and will therefore only especially refer to the development of events afterwards. 62 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND It has been mentioned already that the Con- queror, in depriving the Anglo-Saxon race of their possessions, bestowed most of the manors on the Normans. In the history of almost every county will be found the names of some of those to whom these grants have been made, and in many cases when the original name can no longer be traced, the property has been ascertained to have been trans- ferred by marriage of female descendants to the names of their husbands. The lands' were all held under the king, subject to conditions which were subscribed to on both sides through a ceremonial ex- pressive of a mutual compact of support and fidelity. The forms gone through were : first, homage ; and, second, fealty on the part of the subjects, which were particularly significant of submission and devotedness to the king ; and, third, investiture by the king ; whereupon the land was conferred upon the subject, and the latter became, and acknow- ledged himself, the king's vassal. The vassal, in his responsibility to the king, had to make similar grants out of his lands to dependents, and he exacted from them the same conditional homage and fealty. Upon investiture, the real duties of the vassal commenced, which consisted chiefly in services, the principal of which were military, often IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 63 settled by usage ; and further obligations, called feudal incidents, were attached to them, such as reliefs, fines upon alienation, escheats, aids, and wardship ; and the holdings were alienable only with the king's consent. Such briefly were the mutual obligations under the feudal system. Space does not permit that we should give a long descrip- tion of the duties, but enough has been said to show their onerous nature. It is important to note that the holding of the land was, primitively, simply occupation under the system. With this state of things there existed under the landowners a large class of the people in slavery, and in a condition akin to that state. Their condition appears to have been the effect of the conquests in the first instance, and in the im- punity with which the strong could overawe and subdue the weak in the contentions of those times, and in the lawlessness prevailing under the feudal lords and feudal magistrates after- wards. As some had appropriated the land because of the dung their cattle had put on it, others thought presumably that in consequence of the food they had imparted to the bodies of their dependents they had the same right to appropriate their persons. 64 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND The following account from Hallam will give an idea of the condition of the dependent referred to, as late as the reign of Henry II. " The villein so called was absolutely dependent upon his lord's will, compelled to unlimited services, and destitute of property, not only in the land he held for his maintenance, but in his own acquisi- tions. If a villein purchased or inherited land, the lord might seize it ; if he accumulated stock, its possession was equally precarious. Against his lord he had no right of action; because his indemnity in damages, if he could have recovered any, might have been immediately taken away. If he fled from his lord's service, or from the land which he held, a writ issued de nativitate probanda, and the master recovered his fugitive by law. His children were born to the same state of servitude ; and contrary to the rule of the civil law, where one parent was free, and the other in villeinage, the offspring followed their father's condition." The principal estates subject to the feudal system were manorial grants, which were spread over most of the country. The customs introduced by which those estates were endeavoured to be perpetuated in the families owning them, and the laws which were finally enacted and came into IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 65 operation on intestacy, adding to the effect of the customs under the names of entail and primogeni- ture, applied to all land estates in the course of time. The power to create manors was abolished in the reign of Edward I., by the Act Quia Emptores> and no new ones have been created since. Manorial estates of previous creation still endure in large numbers. The aspect of those estates, and the posi- tion of their lords, though their tenures and customs last to this day, have very considerably changed. Occupation of the land was not only a source of power, but a source of responsibility to the lord; and while his duties were onerous, his rights over the land were very circumscribed. A portion only was his demesne land, which he farmed. Of the rest^ a portion was divided among the socage tenants^ and a portion was allotted to the class called villeins, who were forced to work on the lord's demesne, and the remaining portion was common pasture for the use equally of others owning and depending upon the estate. Both arable and pasture was all unenclosed. From the sparseness of the population, and the fact of their being ill- trained to trade or art, the supplies the lord pro- cured in those days were characterized more by F 66 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND plenty than by delicacy; and of luxury he had none. But a vast number of the population subsisted by them, though in a condition of villeinage. In the course of time, very much by the aid of the legislature, many of the villeins, escaping the harsh treatment of the lords, became enfranchised through absence from their estates, and this change was greatest about the fourteenth century. With- out improving their circumstances much, and while injuring them in many ways, the villeins i-ejoiced, however, in the use of their freedom ; and many getting trained to art and trade, learnt to minister luxuries and delicacies to the fancies of the lords. And with the profit they made through their industry, some rose to be burgesses and owners of houses in the towns, or adjoining same, and even became possessed of wealth, and others re- maining on estates received pay for their work. On the other hand, an important change soon occurred on the manorial estates. The lords gradually enclosed what was formerly the common lands, and let these out on lease, whereby a vast number of the free labourers found themselves excluded from the opportunity of living the common afforded them, and became beggars, overrunning the country ; but for a time, by IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER, 6j relief through charitable aids, they managed to live.* , We have so far done little else than record the treatment of the land, which is distinguished as real property, and its dependents. We shall now be entering upon a view of the development of the produce, which constitutes by distinction what is called personalty, as it has occurred side by side with the working of realty. We have seen already that primogeniture was introduced with feudal tenures, and grew fast as a custom, notwithstanding the decay of the feudal system with which it was connected, and the •changes consequent thereon in the character of the possession of the land, which made its possession gradually more absolute. Primogeniture on in- testacy became a fixed rule of law, restricting effectually the number of estates to a few families, and about the thirteenth century the various feudal ■services were commuted into payments. Owing to the enfranchisement of labour, and * Every effort was used by royal ordinances and enactments to maintain villeinage, especially after the pestilence of 1348, vyhen the labourers, in their reduced number, vi&xe. wanting higher wages ; but with the spread of knowledge, and the rebellious spirit of the peasantry then prevailing against their condition, the later measures were inoperative, and villeinage became extinct in the fifteenth -century. 68 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND the general intercourse with countries in the East, trade and industry, as representing produce and personalty, developed considerably in England soon after. Wool became the principal article of export and revenue, and wealth accumulated, especially in the hands of those following trade. We find records in proof of this in the contri- butions from burgesses of the principal towns to the necessities of government in the fifteenth century. Their riches increased at a greater rate than the means of those who lived simply from the rents of the land. The process of the latter was, meanwhile, to keep on enclosing and letting out on lease gradually more of the manorial lands for their exclusive profit, and applying the practice of rack-renting with vigour against the occupiers of the few enclosures, who, chiefly labourers settled on them by common right, were finally ousted out of them by these proceedings. And it is important to note that this rising personal property in trade and industry was from only small savings in the beginning, and that it was restricted in no way like the land from distribution on intestacy. Towards the fifteenth century a further notable change took place as regards the obligations of IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 69 the holders of land. Kings then endeavoured also to fight their battles with the assistance of hirelings from the ranks of labour, and armies became formed whereby the feudal compact, though continuing the same between the king and his vassals, was deprived of its original efficacy, and homage and investiture became unnecessary ceremonies. It was from that time the pressure of the landowners' obligations to the king gradually diminished, till, finally, the Act was passed by which they were entirely released of all duties in respect of their holding. The landowner owes, it is true, allegiance to the Crown, as representing the legislature, which is one improvement on the principle of pure submission to the king or the old allodial principle. But the principle of allegiance in the case of land receives no special application in our days, nor is it acted upon. The resources of those employing themselves at trade and industry have ever continued to develop, partly through their energy and number, but especially through the laws which governed the distribution of this class of property and made it available for exchange and purposes of labour. Without giving an account of the process xif development through which they passed, such as 70 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND incorporation of towns, or commerce with other countries, it will suffice for our object to show the respective conditions in power and numbers of the classes enriched by industry and owning personalty, and those owning the land or real property under the working of the two principles, distribution and monopoly. The following are tables giving the principal result of the land system in holdings, and the number of owners of the land in England as at present (which has been ever tending to diminish), and the income of those living by industry, with the total population in the last few years — which account of population we may assume to include all those in receipt of no income at all as well. Statement I. TABLE OF LANDOWNERS. England and Wales. No. of Owners. Acres. 400 Peers and Peeresses ... ... 5)728,979 1,288 Great Owners 8,497,699 2,529 Squires 4,319,271 4,217 18,545,949 9,585 Greater Yeomen 4,782,627 24,412 Lesser Yeomen 4,144,272 217,049 Small Proprietors 3,931,806 703,289 Cottagers, under I acre 151,148 14,459 Pasture Lands 1,443,548 Waste 1,524,624 973.0" 34,523.974 GROSS RENTAL. Gross rental of Land , ;^99,ooo,ooo Exclusive of gross rental of area of London ... 25,000,000 And Docks owned by Aristocracy, not estimated IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 7 1 Statement II. TABLES OF INCOME AND POPULATION. GROSS INCOME. 1843 ^^515,000,000 1851 616,000,000 1864 814,000,000 1880 1,200,000,000 INCOMES ASSESSED TO TAX OVER £lt,0. 1843 ^^280,000,000 1851 280,000,000 1864 370,000,000 1880 577,000,000 BALANCE OF INCOME NOT ASSESSED TO TAXES. 1843 ;^23S,000,00O 1851 336,000,000 1864 444,000,000 1880 623,000,000 POPULATION, INCLUDING IRELAND. 1843 about 27,000,000 1851 ,, 27,000,000 1864 ,, 30,000,000 i88o ,, 36,000,000 The first statement is extracted from Mr. Brodrick's Work.* The second one is compiled from the Quarterly Revieiv. Mr. Brodrick, in his further observations, states that nearly 19,000,000 of acres, or four-sevenths of the soil, is held by 4000 persons, and that the landed aristocracy, consisting of about 2250 persons, own nearly one-half of the enclosed land of England. * " English Land and English Landlords.'' ^2 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND The figures of Statement No. i establish conclusively the preponderance of the interest of the same few ■ever holding the landed estates. Statement No. 2 gives proof of growing rivalry of wealth in the industrial classes with the owners of landed estates ; but it is to be observed that no mention is made in it of the number in those classes having no share whatever of the wealth or income. The statements, however, go far to prove a state of progress from industrial sources to which that of the owners of estates bears no proportion, consider- ing the smallness of the beginnings of the former. And, further, in looking at their relative position, it must be borne in mind that income in the case of the land is derived in almost all important cases from possessions created without labour ; but in the case of the industrial classes it is all the result •of produce obtained through personal efforts and ■sacrifices. While the founder of industry — in other words, the labourer — by the combination of his powers with the properties of nature, by the acquisi- tion of science, and the application of both in carry- ing out undertakings, aided by the share he gets •on distribution of his ancestor's estate, has added, personally, wealth to a vast extent for himself and others, the few owning the land in their capacity IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 73 of rent— receivers by means of their persistent monopoly — have dispensed altogether with pro- ducing, but have yet added to their means, which has been done by a simple process for centuries of parasitic growth on dependents and producers, who suffered in addition to the trials of labour endless risk from which the others are free. On the one hand, we see growth and diffusion of newly stored wealth for the general good, out of the periodical produce of the earth, by the masses who brought it forth, and, consequently, a development of power among them, which is the result of their creation ; whereas, on the other, we see the few, through their appropriation of the agencies in the soil, which are the primitive source of all produce, only bettering themselves by injuring both producers and dependents — holding the latter in bondage, and after they become free distressing them by terms of tenure and evictions. The condition of the former is in obedience to the laws of nature. As proof against the power of the latter, it only exists through the political authority which the class hold of making rules for themselves through their representatives, the hereditary legislators. The uneven distribution by nature of abilities among men cannot fail to cause inequality of con- 74 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND dition, and it is evidently her intention that for the purposes of government and society this inequaHty should exist. But reason dictates that the moral responsibilities and position of people in life should be in conformity with nature's intentions in that respect, so that the best endowed and qualified may hold the higher places, and exercise the proper control to which they are entitled by their abilities. And if in society, instead of the political power being held by the most skilful and deserving, it is, as in the case of this country, held over the multitude as an inheritance by a few families,, without reference to merit, there alone is a fact that condemns its constitution. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 75. CHAPTER VIII. Effects of concentration of property in land and of distribution of capital respectively. It has been endeavoured so far in this statement to make manifest the violation of the human rights in the concentration of landed property and its general results in excluding the many from oppor- tunities of labour ; and, as against that state of things, to prove the good effect of the contrary principle — distribution, in the growth of personal property through trade and industry. It would probably be asked what direct proof there is of wrong or abstraction of wealth by the centrali- zation of the land. The proof is not far to seek ; it lies in pauperism — pauperism, which is a name peculiar to the English language for that wide- spread condition of a large class of people who are so poor that they have to be supported by State aid, obtained through taxes levied forcibly on the JQ ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND nation at large — a condition which exists nowhere else ; a condition corrupting by its nature, and unduly humiliating to the deserving poor. It has been already pointed out that the popula- tion of a country must depend for subsistence simply upon the employment they can procure for their labour, or their capital, in meeting the wants of those owning the land. It is evident that this precariousness of existence among the multi- tude in this country, where the estates and owners are few, must have driven many, in the first instance, to the necessity of obtaining charity in order to live. For the position of the landowner in refer- ence to his large estate and its produce, would have been as follows : — To satisfy his wants, he needed to employ only a small amount of labour, and little of the capital of others ; and in order to give occupation to the full extent of his estate, ■and of its capabilities of produce to either one or the other, he would have been obliged to invent indulgences for himself, which he would have to procure from the population ; and we know that there was no obligation upon him to do anything ■of the sort. He could indulge or not, he could cultivate the land or not, he could let it or not, as he preferred ; and we know, too, that he often IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. "JJ preferred neither to indulge, nor cultivate, nor let,, and that the public were, moreover, at his mercy in that and in other matters ; for the position of the landlord gives him great facilities for making his own terms as to any tenure under him. There is, therefore, no escaping from the conclusion that there must have been, owing to the independence of the landowner, many at times reduced by the course he would choose, to be without the employ- ment they required to enable them to live, and many crippled in their industry by his terms ; and it is thus, that through the landowner, many willing to work must have been compelled to seek charity in order to live. The state of things of a landlord being at perfect liberty to work or not his land to the full extent of its capabilities is ever con- tinuing, and the disposition, with the size of existing estates, on the part of many owners, is to avail themselves of the liberty, and not to work them as they should. On the other hand, the population has increased from time to time two-fold, four-fold,, ten-fold, while the number of estates has rather diminished than increased ; consequently, the many dependent, of former days must have become legion, till there could be no longer help for them through private subscription ; and therein we have 78 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND the true explanation of the origin of our work- houses — those national institutions of relief — the necessity of which we may boldly say, is the direct effect of the land system. It is evident that the fewer the private estates, the worse must be the want culminating in the state of pauperism. But pauperism is not the only effect of this monopoly. Look at its effects also on industry, through the high rents and terms of tenure the landowner is in a position to reserve and exact by it. Firstly, as result, we see enhanced prices of commodities, followed by the necessity of increas- ing wages, which in their turn on being increased again send up prices, till at last the home produce cannot obtain a sale in foreign markets, and even foreign manufacturers supply our own markets cheaper than we can ourselves. Then depression of trade sets in, factories are closed, farms do not let, and, to crown the whole, protective duties are hinted, that would only make matters worse in adding to prices ; when, at last, the landowner is obliged to restore a part of his rent, but unfor- tunately for the good of the present time, too late ! There is another of its effects noticeable in the tide of emigration which we have witnessed for IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 79 years, carrying to exile in other lands many who would be still serviceable to the country. In confirmation of previous statements it will be necessary now to give a short history of pauperism. With reference to the enfranchisement of the villeins, it will be found recorded that many of them in regaining their freedom became vagrants, and lived by charitable aid of the public ; and the first mention we find of the class is in a statute of Richard II., 1388, relating to the impotent poor. Then, again, we find them mentioned so late as 1536, at the time of the breaking up of the monasteries in Henry VIII's. reign, in an Act which provides measures against the vagabond and sturdy beggar, and encourages voluntarj^ collections for the impotent, giving proof of growing trouble on their score. With this state of things in the sixteenth century, the agricultural labourer as he now exists was beginning to appear. He was called into being by the general rising of rents, and the wholesale eviction of the smaller tenants, at the time of the further enclosing of the lands. Many of the poor copyholdei's were then particularly oppressed by their landlords, who succeeded to bring them into servitude by increasing their fines, and by driving 80 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND them to forfeit their tenures. Legislative measures were used to stem the force of these events, and protection was acknowledged to be due by the government to the labourer in his dependent con- dition, so that he should escape that oppression which would debase him below the condition of man. Laws of feudal tenure were put in force against landed traders in respect to lands not their inherit- ance, and against the destruction of farm buildings, and the breaking up of arable lands for conversion into pasture. Through these enactments the con- dition of the labourer was relieved for a time ; but as the measures did not sufficiently attack the root of the evil, which existed in the power of the landowner — already too great — to charge and evict as he liked, and the power received fresh accession from the grants of lands of the suppressed monasteries, and the feudal duties sought to be re-imposed came to be only nominal, the number of vagrants and houseless poor again increased con- siderably, and it was then that the valiant beggar who would not, or could not work, was most con- spicuous. The whipping, branding, and hanging which were authorized in his case for misdeeds of idleness, proved, however, useless; and another Act was passed under Edward VI., authorizing the IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 8 1 vagrants to be adjudged slaves for two years, or for life, according to the nature of the offences. But this Act so signally failed, that in about two years it was withdrawn, and we see pauperism taking such an extension, that in Elizabeth's reign (1601) compulsory assessment for the relief of the poor had to be fully established ; and it kept extending, till workhouses for their relief were ultimately estabhshed, in 1722. In the reign of George II. the sum expended in relief was under £y^o,ooo per annum ; in 1775 it amounted to ;Ci, 720,000. It went on rapidly increasing till, in 1 81 8, it reached nearly ;^8,ooo,ooo. Owing to abuses of administration, a new Act of Parliament was passed in 1834, and through its provisions the expenditure was kept down ; but still it again increases, and the following extract from a work* published in 1885, will show, generally, the con- dition of this country, both as to pauperism and emigration in that year : — "From the vast superiority of England in manufactures and commerce, it is incomparably the richest country in the world ; notwithstanding which, a frightful amount of poverty exists. About a million of its inhabitants receive constant or * " Geography," by Dr. Cornwell. 82 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND occasional relief as paupers ; and it is calculated that, in London alone, more than 20,000 people rise every morning without knowing how the food for the day is to be obtained. To meet this poverty, about ;£^ 10,000,000 is raised compulsorily every year for the support of paupers, and vast sums are voluntarily subscribed towards numerous charitable institutions spread over the country. In the ten years, 1871-80, 1,750,000 left the United Kingdom." See the following statements of local taxation, expenditure, rateable value, and local debt of this country in a period of ten years, from 1870 to 1880. Public works for educational purposes and of utility may have gone to swell the amount. The confusion of local authorities, the multiplication of local boards, the intersection of unions, with the inaptitude of the boards for their duties, may have caused much of the expenditure. But as through this imperfect administration it is im- possible to tell which share of the local taxation and debt is really on account of pauperism, we can only conclude, by what we see of poverty and its asylums, that a large proportion of the gigantic increase of expenditure must necessarily have been applied to its relief. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 83 Statistics relating to Local Taxation for England AND Wales." Taxation ... 1870 . ;^i7,Soo,ooo 91 1880 27,000,000 Expenditure ... ... 1870 24,250,000 J) 1880 52,500,000 Rateable value ... 1870 107,000,000 j» 1880 . 135,000,000 Local debt 1870 38,250,000 »j 1880 . ... 144,500,000 Judging by these tables, judging by the increase going on in buildings adjoining unions, the erection of cottage homes, the additions to pauper lunatic asylums, there can be little doubt that the spread of pauperism is not stemmed. It is contended that the enormous growth of pauperism has accompanied and arisen out of the gigantic creation of personalty. It is probable that many members of the industrial classes have, in the division of their profits, allotted too small a share to those who in joining with them to carry out their under- takings are in receipt of wages only, and that by a proper apportionment of profits the distress of the wage-receiver might be less than it is ; and of this we shall speak later on. But the undue appor- tionment does not do away with the fact that * Extracted from the Quarterly Review. 84 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND pauperism — that is to say, a widespread state of the masses requiring national aid for subsistence — is to be attributed distinctly to the monopoly of the land among the few. We have already shown that the labourer without possessions can be em- ployed only in two ways — either by the owner of the land, or those occupying it under the owners, such as industries, or the public ; and that those occupiers are themselves dependent upon the owners for the raw material solely to be obtained from the land, and required for their subsistence, for employ- ing themselves as well as others to obtain it ; and that they are compelled by the charges for their occupancy, to work that material to the utmost, by calling in labour to assist them. Therefore there stands the fact that dearth of employment can be traced only to three causes : either the land is incapable of producing, or the labourer will not work it, or the owners withhold it from their not requiring, or not choosing, or not knowing how to place it at disposal of those wanting it for purposes of industry and sustenance. That the land generally can support its population we have proved by the fact that it does so ; that it is not fully worked is showji by the vast quantities that are uncultivated ; and to pretend that the masses will not work is IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 85 absurd. We are, therefore, here brought again back to the landowner, as the subject upon whom all depend in the main for subsistence ; and as through State aid those destitute by his inaction are yet relieved, there cannot be the slightest doubt that the relief does not come from the landowner, as he is personally a non-producer ; therefore we can only view it as proceeding from another source, which can be no other than industry. Therefore, instead of the growth of personalty — which is the fruit of industry — being the cause of pauperism, it is that alone that can have relieved it. No deep inquiry is necessary for obtaining prac- tical confirmation of the facts here advanced. By an exploration of any district, as a specimen of what is going on in the whole country, it would be found that all interests, whether agricultural, industrial, or mineral, under yearly tenancy, or leasehold, or copyhold, and the interest of those who, without possessions, have only one in the care of their person, and the consumer in general — all are subject more or less to the disposition of those holding the land, to grant it on fair terms or not, or even at all. Every one, from the builder to the purchaser of any structure built on ground leased, and the occupier, and every member of his family, is affected 86 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND in his speculation, his means of comfort, and his prospects, according as the owner of the ground is guided by common sense and justice, or not ; and it is only in exceptional cases that it is possible to obtain land for building, otherwise than on lease, the effect of which is, that the structures all revert to the landowner in the end. The agricultural tenant's interest is from year to year, and all improvements effected by the latter pass to the landlord at the expiration of the tenancy ; giving power to the landlord to terminate the tenancy whenever he pleases, by notice to the tenant to leave his farm, with the improvements he made on it, or pay an increased rent. Laws have been enacted to prevent this result, but they have proved ineffectual. Leases for land, either for building or agricultural purposes, are all most onerous, inducing contractors, in the one case, to run up inferior structures, to last out only the lease ; and in the other, discouraging the farmer from investing his resources in improvements, because, at the end of the lease, they would all pass to the landlord. Through the action of the landlords, not only have the labourers been divorced from the soil, but they have been driven into the purlieus and slums of the neighbouring IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 87 towns. In many cases a man has to trudge four miles to his work, and four miles back again, because the landlord will not allow dwellings on his land ; hence the overcrowding of towns, and the solitude that reigns over many miles of estates. And there are other effects of the landowner's position, which reach even the public and the consumer, inasmuch as, according to Adam Smith's statement, one-third of the cost of every article of consumption is caused by the charges for rent alone ; nor does the evil stop here, for in cases when the disposition exists in a landlord to open up his property, he is generally restricted from doing so by the baneful system of settlements and entail limiting his ownership and action ; and we find him somehow mixed up with other interests, almost everywhere. In addition to the direct power which he possesses from his freehold, he has an interest, as lord of the manor, in the soil of commons, carrying with it property in all the minerals it may contain, subject only to a right of pasture of the commoners. He has a claim also, in the foreshore of the sea, restricted only by the Crown ; and he has rights in the rivers, and over the fish in them. He is also prominent in both legislative assemblies, where hitherto he has 88 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND been free to turn everything, by Act of Parliament,' to his own use ; of which there is evidence in the appropriation and enclosure of vast tracts of common land, within the last century, to the exclusion of the labouring population. And all the time, while the population has been increasing ; while capital has been created and spent ; while considerable risk has been incurred on all sides, and trade has been fluctuating, competition has been straining every nerve of those engaged in that and other pursuits ; and many have been ruined, others reduced to starvation point, and most people have been kept down at the lowest possible limit of wages at which life can be supported ; — while all these circumstances have been taking place, on the other side, through the effect of sheer conquest, confirmed by laws, customs, and settle- ments, which were made in their interest, they are nearly the same few landowning families of past centuries who are dividing the increased rents that have been steadily rising from royalties and ground rents everywhere, and are now excessive as com- pared with their amount in former years ; and they are doing so without any loss or risk to themselves, and without any labour on the part of themselves or their ancestors, without a hitch, and without even IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 89 any deduction to speak of, for those agencies in the soil, through which it is proved that all effects are really produced. Figures are arrayed in great force from the returns of gross income and assessment to the In- come Tax, which have been already put forward, showing the increase of income that has actually, from time to time, taken place among the popula- tion receiving low pay, to prove that the condition of that class is gradually improving, in opposition to alleged statements in Mr. George's book, en- titled " Progress and Poverty," that the poor are getting poorer, as the rich are getting richer. Mr. Hallam, in his " History of the Middle Ages," states that, at his time — some fifty or sixty years ago — the condition of the labourer in England was worse than in the fourteenth century. We believe, however, that the condition of those working and receiving wages in this country is somewhat better than when Mr. Hallam wrote. And, indeed, history has, all along, established the fact of the existence of an industrial class, growing gradually in wealth, and employing much labour, by the side of the landowning class ; and we have had occasion to refer to it, to show the benefit of the working of personalty under the principles which govern it ; go ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND and that fact is so true that, really, the rising, class actually threatens the existence of the land- owning interest very seriously, and more even than any books and dissertations can do. But still, as to the working and wage-receiving people, we cannot see that the advantage they are gaining is proved by the figures to be as stated.. For no account in those returns is taken of the increase in metallic substances, nor of the increase of prices in some things ; and the figures only enable one to arrive at an average ; therefore, prove nothing in individual cases ; and there is left out a description of the number of those in whose behalf we are speak- ing, viz. the people that get no income or work at all. We have stated the number of that class, under the head of paupers alone, to be at present about 1,000,000, and their cost ;£^io,ooo,ooo in the last year, and the following tables of pauperism* will give the number and cost from 1834 to 1880 : — Year. Population. Expenditure. Paupers. 1834 14,372,000 ;^6,3i7,2SS 1841 15.91 1.757 4,766,929 1,299,048 185I 17,927,600 4,962,704 941,315 1861 20,066,224 5.778,943 883,921 187I 22,712,266 7.886,724 1,037,360 1880 25,323,000 8,015,010 808,030 The destitute relieved by voluntary aid, in addition, are very numerous. * Extracted from the Rev. T. W. Fowle's work on the Poor Law. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 9 1 There can be no doubt that there has been always a class among the lower orders who, through intelligence, thrift, and combination, and close connection with the rich, have obtained a gradually improving share in the immense increase of productiveness which has been going on ; but out of what they get, is there any thought of the payments they have had to make towards the relief of the poor, to subscriptions to sick societies, to insurance offices, to trades unions ; is there any thought of their privations in order to save ? The great calamity of these people is in their being shamefully off for means at the back of income for a provision in sickness, time of dearth of work, and old age, to a degree that is seen in no other country ; and the precariousness of their state, ex- clusively dependent as it is upon employment by others, is often frightfully illustrated by circum- stances,* and is always an incubus upon their mind. The voluntary assistance given to the poor in this country surpasses all conception ; they are the object of the most tender and religious care on the * The circumstances alluded to are chiefly those crises which occur at times when industry and trade, being paralyzed, discontinue their relief. 92 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND part of members of the lower and the middle classes who can help them, and of those living in luxury in a higher state. They are visited, and receive aids of all kind. In addition to unions, almshouses exist for them throughout the land, and vast institutions are endowed for their benefit, and the number who take an interest in them, who co-operate in charitable works for their benefit, is legion. The poor are mentioned everywhere in our literature — in prose, and poetry. There you will see the case recounted of the distressed labourer under the innumerable circumstances of his afflic- tion, of the toiling sempstress in her want, the hard-worked factory hand, the unprovided widow and orphan, and even the victims of poverty brought on by vice. Yet all these charities are of no more use for general relief than a drop of water would be to fill the depths of the ocean ; and, except in a few socialistic theories of reconstruction — theories utterly impracticable — scarcely anything seems contrived at to strike at the evil effectually, so helpless is the case of the poor generally thought in this country ! And it seems inconceivable that the loss of services and value through the operation alone of pauperism, diminishing the resources of the country, and its deteriorating effects, leading to IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 93 worse evils — shamelessness and crime, should be so little appreciated. See what Carlyle says as to pauperism : — " There must be something wrong. A full- formed Horse will, in any market, bring from twenty to as high as two hundred Friedrichs d'or ; such is his worth to the world. A full-formed Man is not only worth nothing to the world, but the world could aiford him a round sum would he simply engage to go and hang himself Neverthe- less, which of the two was the more cunningly devised article, even as an Engine? Good Heavens ! A white European Man, standing on his two Legs, with his two five-fingered Hands at his shackle-bones, and miraculous Head on his shoul- ders, is worth, I should say, from fifty to a hundred Horses ! " Too crowded, indeed ! Meanwhile, what portion of this inconsiderable terraqueous Globe have ye actually tilled and delved, till it will grow no more ? How thick stands your Population in the Pampas and Savannas of America, round ancient Carthage, and in the interior of Africa ; on both slopes of the Altaic chain, in the central Platform of Asia ; in Spain, Greece, Turkey, Crim Tartary, the Curragh of Kildare.? One man in 94 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND one year, as I have understood it, if you lend him Earth, will feed himself and nine others." We may add in the words of Mr. Pollock, in his book entitled " The Land Laws," that " we are in sight of an accumulation of wealth in power in a few hands, and concentrated on vital parts of the Commonwealth, such as is without example in history, and might conceivably be a danger to the State." Perceiving the evil which is at last bringing with it this danger, it behoves us, at least, to consider whether past local Acts and customs leading to the concentration should not for the common benefit be repealed or reversed. As the term concentration applied to land will be often used by itself in the course of this inquiry, it will have now to be distinctly defined. By the term will be meant a system of collection of the landed property of a country in the hands of the few. By concentration of forces and material for administrative and business purposes, those aims may be carried out more effectually, and at less comparative expense in some things than if they were attempted by divided and small means ; and we see proof of its advantage in Government administration, and the working of industries, especially railways, which answer well for supply- IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 95 ing certain general wants. Still this species of concentration has its drawbacks, and we must refer to it later on, as requiring all the vigilance of the community to prevent its becoming a dangerous monopoly. Nothing, however, that can be said in favour of concentration for business and adminis- trative purposes has the slightest bearing upon the question of concentration of the land, as the con- centration for administrative purposes is rather the effect of general and free association, which we should endeavour to foster, and the land concentra- tion is, on the contrary, a palpable effect of dis- sociation — a state the reverse of general and free association. 96 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND CHAPTER IX. Process of conversion of large feudal occupancies into present concentrated freeholds. The collective rights of mankind most apparent are those that exist as regards the natural agencies in the land ; and, when society is formed, the same rights arise to protection which each and all can claim from the community for their person and interests. In our first statement it was particularly noted that a few formed into a class have been invariably endeavouring not only to invade those rights in the land, but to be relieved from the obligations devolving upon them through their connection therewith ; and although the legislature most effectively protects the person of each against violence, it is as far as ever from affording protec- tion to the masses in their collective right in the land referred to. There is conflict in fact, and it is conflict of that very nature which society, through the medium of the legislature, is formed to check — IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 97 a conflict between the individual and the masses in their separate interests which always rages before man has the social and legislative means of founding government for common protection ; and it seems singular that, in a society so long constituted, the strife should be still carried on successfully in respect of an element so important for existence as the land, in the same narrow interests, under an old legislature which one would have expected by this time to go with the masses in all that is of importance and that relates to justice, humanity, and policy. We have also already noted the fact that the privileged class owes the strength it has in its contentions to the considerable political power possessed by many of its members in the legislative assemblies of the country ; and though the tendency of the legislature in this country is really towards what is right, it is out- weighed in the matter by that class invariably using its opportunity of legislation for its own interest ; and therein is fully explained the gradual process of confirmation and intensifying of the concentration, and we shall be able to show up the abuse further as we proceed, by facts more particularly indicative of it. Our land laws, as to form, are only a modified H g8 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND feudalism. We have, therefore, upon the question of the existing laws and customs, to refer again to the institution of that system and its objects in order to better grasp at the irrationality of the continuance of its peculiarities under the altered circumstances of the present time. The feudal system was a co-operative association for self- defence in an age when there were no standing armies. The feudal tenant was rather settled on the land than an owner of it. He held it from the king to meet the discharge of the obligations of service, pecuniary and personal, which devolved upon him as the king's vassal ; and these grants were deemed as from the nation through the king for a stated purpose. All the laws of ancient times clearly carry the implication that the holding of the land was at the pleasure of the king, who could depose, restore, impeach, or pardon the holder, as he thought fit. The land was inalienable, except by the king's consent ; disposal of it by will was prohibited ; and its holding was not hereditary, but as long as it was held by a vassal, more or less preference to the eldest son was given in division of it on the death of its holder, which was the origin of primogeniture. It was essentially an aristocratic military system. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 99 In the early period, when the kings, blinded by feelings of personal interest, treated the land very much as if it was their own, fines and confiscations on the most trifling occasions were of common occurrence, and it was a law, in the case of there being no natural male heir to an estate on the decease of its owner, that it should revert to the king. This law had its justification in the objects of all feudal tenure. But the hostility of the land- holders to it was severe, and the result was that the custom of primogeniture was followed soon by the legalization of entails (introduced under Henry I.) by operation of the Act of Edward I., known as Statute de Donis, in 1285, through which the owners of the land obtained effective restraints upon the alienation and distribution of their estates, preventing their reversion to the king and securing their preservation in families by tying them up to certain conditions as to the heirs of a man's body begotten or to be begotten, which custom has continued to the present day. Both customs and law were thus turned to account in favour of the landowners' interest ; but they had no root in the popular sentiment, and, with the decay of feudalism and its military purposes, and of the conditions on which estates lOO ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND were granted, they were ruled contrary to the national polity. Bacon, Coke, Blackstone, and other eminent authors have all written against entails as simply saving family interests. In the interval, while the large landowners were constant in their endeavours to promote concen- tration in favour of large estates and to restrain alienation from them, the efforts of the community were equally persevering to combat the concentra- tion and to break in upon those restraints, and we find all sorts of enactments and measures used, collusive, fictitious, and otherwise, for barring the landowners' measures. But so persistent have the landowners been that every successive change has been turned to their advantage. One of the first of the Acts, the law of Mort- main, 1279, was directed against the absorption of lands by Church corporations, but it was evaded by conveyances being made upon trust to friendly hands for the enjoyment and use of the corpo- rations. And this contrivance being taken up by laymen, whose lands became thus commonly granted also to intermediate persons upon trust for the "use" or benefit of those who actually owned them, the practice led in a great way to the land system of settlements prevailing. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. lOI Previous to modification of the feudal law in 1540, land was not subject to testamentary dis- position, and it had been usual to evade the pro- libition of direct bequest in making provision for yrounger children, by leaving estates in "use'' charged with payments so considerable as to amount virtually to a transfer of the property ; and a " use " might be extended on a '' use," and it might be extended to the descendants of those in whose behalf it was first made, leading to excessive intricacies of title. The Statutes of Uses, 1536, which was passed for abolishing " uses," terminated the difficulty by creating parliamentary titles. All persons entitled to the use of the lands were declared the lawful possessors, and as the land could not be bequeathed by will, the system of trusts was virtually abolished by the statute ; but later, the power of willing away land was granted, and thus it came to pass that lands were again left in use, in the manner already described, and the power of founding perpetual estates by entail was not only revived, but became fortified. It is to be observed that the complications in the land laws arose and developed gradually as the feudal tenancies, which we noticed to be mere accupancies, came to be dealt with as real property. 102 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND After the law of Charles II., in 1660, releasing all tenures from feudal obligations, the power of perpetuating estates became further thoroughly established, in the interests of the family, by the system of strict settlements, which, it is said, can be traced to the same Statute of Uses, whereby the trusts and uses it was intended to extirp flourished all the more. Through that system, which survives only slightly modified to the present day, the power of entail and of fettering inheritance has become virtually absolute, generally limiting ownership of land by giving effect to disposal of such property in favour of people unborn, long after the hand that conveyed it away, has ceased to exist — a most mischievous custom, detrimental to the development of the resources of the soil as well as securing the monopoly of it to the few. Consideration of the interests of society, in the great land questions, never took much effect in opposition to the encroachments of the landlords ; and, upon the admission of legal authority,* the land system of England to the present day is intelligible only in the light of its historical occu- pation by that class, and the land laws themselves are a mere inextricable mass, in which the attempts » " The Land Laws," by Mr. Pollock. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 103 of an impatient Parliament to make crooked things straight, the partial clearances and half-hearted amendments of modern law reformers, figure poorly as effective resistance. According to the same authority, the lawyers, acting in the private interests of the landowners, are held to have brought the law to its present state by their contrivance. It is the effect of their ingenuity, not of national policy. While the law was ever setting bounds to the power of fettering inheritances, conveyancers have been ever labouring to evade it, till real property has become a strong- hold of mystery in their hands, and in every way there is an apparent conspiracy to make purchases of the land costly and perilous from the difficulties laid in the way of getting at title. This state of things gratifies the privileged class in their rebellion against the tendency of the civilized world towards several ownership, but they scarcely themselves understand the legal process by which their object is secure. " From any modern point of view, the surviving peculiarities of feudal law, such as primo- geniture, can be defended only by those ingenious arguments which, being manifestly begotten of after-thought, appear convincing only to persons who need no conviction." 104 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND Apart from the error and wrongs of concentra- tion, we have the following question before us as to the legal measures used for producing it. What has been the cause of their intricacy and confusion, and the conflict they have brought about? It appears that, in a great measure, these have arisen through the assistance the laws afforded for evasion by the landowners of their proper proportion of the state burthens, and in their framers not choosing to see that, subject to the proper proportion being made a first charge upon the produce of all land, any estate or property in land should be, under principles of legislation, as far as possible similar to those ruling personalty, which work naturally and fairly well for the development of that class of property, and to the same framers straining to establish the laws of real property on altogether different principles, which work very badly for every one except its owners. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 105 CHAPTER X. Distribution of the land and its produce, according to priority of rights acquired by labour — a main law of nature. No other conclusion can be arrived at, if our views be correct as to the origin and development of the principle of concentration of estates under which society is ruled, than that it would be justice to oppose the further development of the principle, and to procure restoration of the obliga- tions connected with the estates from which release has been obtained by their owners, and to reverse the measures which have been used to carry the principle out ; and, of course, in order to reverse concentration of landed estates, there can be no other way but to adopt measures for their dis- tribution. In economical questions, by the word "law" is not meant enactment or statute, but a rule of action which cannot be transgressed without injury to Io6 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND the community in the long run, and by nature's laws of distribution are therefore meant here the laws of distribution in that economic point of view. It follows from this definition that by the law of rent, he who pays it should be allowed enough from the produce of his work, skill, and capital, to subsist and keep these going. By the law of wages, the hired labourer should have enough in wages to enable him to subsist and gather strength to do his work ; and by the law of existence, man should be in a position generally to procure by his labour that which is necessary for his subsistence. If these three laws were transgressed, the whole fabric of society would collapse ; for the object of letting out land- holdings, of employing labour, and of propagation, would be utterly defeated. Farms could not be carried out, the labourer could not work, and existence would cease ; and a partial transgression of the laws must in the same degree affect society. These laws are so obvious that they are conse- quently generally observed in our society, but unfortunately without heed or consideration of any other law in the matter through the pressure of concentrating measures, and the consequence is a shortness of allowance, which places the small IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 10/ capitalist under a constant pressure of unduly high rents that often brings about his ruin, which leaves the labourer in a condition bordering on utter indigence he is too often reduced to, and causes the multitude in indigence to eke out a wretched existence in a state of distressing want, with all the vices which want breeds ; and that law un- heeded is the law which provides for the general distribution of the land, its agencies, and produce as much as possible so as to protect all against such eventualities. The law prescribing the distribution of the land, its agencies and produce, is a natural main law arising out of the general wants of mankind for subsistence, and is one of those requiring to be carried out by association through the means of legislation, due regard being had to the relation mankind holds to nature's supplies and the relations of its members one to the other. We have seen it proved, by the character of those relations, that mankind have a collective right in the natural agencies contained in those supplies ; and that each member has an individual right of estate and property in the soil and its produce, the one limited, the other absolute subject to the collective right aforesaid, according to the labour I08 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND he has embodied therein ; and that these rights carry with them rights of transfer of the estate or property to any one capable of being a party to the transaction. This law of distribution is supported, and proved equally by .the baneful effects of concentration already reviewed, and by the rights evolving from the reciprocal relations of man to man and his relation to nature's gifts, which clearly force the distribution upon him. The descent of property on intestacy should evi- dently be regulated by social combination in the same manner, dispersing it among the nearest descendants of the owner, with reserves for tax- ation in cases in which the property has- not been earned by the successors; By the law of distribu- tion all are excluded from absolute property in the natural agencies of the soil, which must be accounted for to the community ; those who hold it without either they or their predecessors having ever done anything, are excluded also from property. By the same law the limits of appro- priation of land in the first instance are fixed for the individual, according to that which he embodied of his own individuality in it ; and the number of owners of the land in a progressive state of society becomes gradually multiplied, the IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 109 better to meet its wants ; and land properly- acquired would pass, at death of the owner on intestacy, to all next of kin, and limited owner- ship would be abolished, and donees, grantees, and assigns from parties living would also have an equal right in any property made over to them, provided the property had been originally created by labour of the donor's grantors, and it is fairly taxed on transfer. It is here to be observed that, under a rule of concentration main- taining the lands forcibly in the hands of de- scendants who have done nothing to them, and have received them from the original possessors, who appropriated them by violence, no such beneficial results as those just enumerated can occur. The only grave practical difficulty in the way of adoption of the principle of distribution could be in the opposition which the parties interested in concentration would offer, and the force of the concentrationists by their possessions and the influence they exercise over ignorant adherents and dependents is considerable ; but assuming that opposition overthrown, and the principle of distri- bution so fully established as to take effect, there can be no doubt, whatever may be the mode or no ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND extent to which the statesman may think it advisable to go in carrying it out, that its results in practice must be as beneficial as the principle is righteous, according to the degree in which it can be carried out. It is not an uncommon thing, however, to read ' of comparisons between forms of government and paternal authority, favourable to concentration, upon the grounds that that authority is an illustra- tion of power and property concentrated by divine intention, and that the objects of all Governments as regards the people are the same as those of paternal power as regards the family. There is no similarity ; on the contrary, we see, in examples of paternal authority, ever-recurring proof of hold- ings in accordance with the laws of distribution ; for, as a fact, the father always divides his income with his children in his lifetime, so far as is neces- sary for their support, according to his position in life, and in case of intestacy, at death his personal property is almost universally divided among his children, and it is only by a strange law, such as rules in this country, that his real property passes at death, on intestacy, to the eldest son. It is not an uncommon notion also, on the part of religious devotees, that government being IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. Ill evidently of divine intention, he who holds its reins should be treated as appointed by God him- self, and that in the excesses of his authority a king is only accountable for his actions to God, who conferred it. This is the strongest maxim that has ever been put forward for concentration of both land and authority, and it is in express opposition to the opinion that the people should have the supreme control of, or at least a share in, all political power. The maxim has very much fallen to the ground from the reason that any one succeeding to the place of one reigning would, according to it, be equally the anointed of God, and that attempts at revolution are distinctly encouraged thereby, and that any ruffian only strong enough to seize power becomes confirmed in it, by no other act than one of brute force; and there is the inconsistency in the maxim, that at the same time that rebellion is assumed to be expressly opposed by the divinity, it is also assumed to be expressly approved, if it only succeeds, and usurpation is always sanctioned, though the means leading to it are in every case condemned. The theory that the people are the party to share in and control authority, as they must know best their common interests, and can have only one 112 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND general will, that of promoting them, is evidently the best calculated for their well-being, and the main point for consideration should be to find a form of government under which they cannot be excluded. We have seen that one of the direct effects of concentration of land is an undue absorption by its owners of a large proportion of the personal produce from it, through the power it gives them over the labour and tenants who work it, iri the general arrangement for wages and leases with dependents. Against that effect, the application of the principle of distribution would cause im- mediately a distribution of real and personal property — in other words, land and produce also — and the generality would have freer and fuller opportunity for the exercise of their abilities in relation to both, and with that a fairer distribution of the general obligations for public services would naturally follow. And this distribution of land, personal produce, and mutual obligations, would, by its levelling effects, force into channels of industry a considerable proportion of man's powers which have hitherto been lying idle, supported by super- fluity, or debarred from work by scarcity of the proper material ; and the large economic question. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. II 3 which we have shown to exist in the condition of the two classes now at the extreme ends of society, who on the one hand, by means of the superfluity, dispense with employing themselves, and on the other, through scarcity of the material, are not in a position to employ themselves, would be solved through the creation which would ensue of a more general available resource for labour out of what has been hitherto superfluity for the few. It would become infinitely more easy under distribution, through the spread of means it would create, for those among the masses who would choose to, to save in order to protect themselves against such eventualities as dearth of employment, illness, old age, and the requirements of the im- potent among relatives, which it would probably fall to their lot to minister to. We should also see the power over the labourer possessed by the capitalist in his comparative monopoly of stored produce, considerably curbed and counteracted ; and when large undertakings would be necessary for carrying out particular objects, we should find them worked much more by associated means of the multitude, either through public companies or corporations, under supervision of associations, who would share in the profits, and a landed estate, I 114 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND instead of being perpetuated, as at present, ifl a fossil and embalmed condition for centuries after the great man or favourite, in whose honour it was granted, has ceased to exist, would dissolve, like the rest of things of nature; and instead of seeing before us everlasting soulless relics of the past in those monuments of selfishness, instead of having estate annals loaded with names of obscure descen- dants, we should see fresh estates reforming out of the dust of the old ones, according to the rules of life, and passing into the hands of those better able to acquire and work them, and whose names would be more worthy of commemoration. The laws of distribution, as arising from rights in property, would not benefit directly many who, through misfortune or their fault, own no posses- sions. It is to be observed, however, that there are also other laws of distribution arising out of our wants which cannot be transgressed, if the existence of fellow-creatures should be a care ; for it is not rational to leave the destitute to the operation of nature to live or die. The impotent poor, those willing but not able to work, would cease to be; the formidable item which they are ; but there would be still some of them, and there would be presumably also the wilful burden — the IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 15 evil-doer. There appears to be no right on the part of the poor to aid from the masses except through charity, which religion prescribes. Their claim can only be upon the privileged classes by whose hand they suffer ; but, as a matter of expediency and policy, it seems also pointed out that, failing aid from the proper quarter, the community should relieve them, and that the man able and willing to work, but without employment, should be provided suitably out of the taxes with the means of emi- grating to scenes where nature's stores, which are refused to him at home by the operation of our institutions, would be available for the exercise of his labour. The right towards the wilful burden, or the evil-doer, would be to lock him up. It will be observed, no doubt, that the laws arising out of our necessity for subsistence, are not the only laws of nature with which society would have to deal ; that there are other requirements, such as security of the person and property, liberty, and honour, and peace, all of which are related indirectly with those wants, and have also to be ministered to by the legislature in view of the rights they create ; that, left to the care of nature, with the contentions which would arise, neither wants nor rights would be respected ; and that the Il6 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND only means society would have of dealing with them would be through the force it could con- centrate to do so, and it might be urged that tliat force can only be obtained by a sacrifice of some of those rights. We grant this as a principle of political right ; but when it is said that in the case of this country the rights of the people to share in the land have been sacrificed for that purpose, and that the freedom and tranquillity which they are supposed to enjoy make up a return for the surrender, it is here that we must take objection. Such a plea for the surrender of such rights is mere sophistry. For it must be admitted that they are among the most important which a government is instituted to. serve, and that by the sacrifice they are done away with in a sweep. There is an absence of reasoning in the proposition of concentration of the land, taken with the objects of government, which is astonishing. In the mean while, it is clear that the natural laws of distribution of the land cannot be brought thoroughly into practice ; but still, they should not be the less a fundamental guide in politics ; and although it may not be advisable to apply them at the first stage of society in reference to lands already under tillage or home occupation, there can IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 11/ be no doubt that the principle of distribution, if it is adopted, must adjust rights so in the end, by means of the division of the land which it would promote, that most of those inheriting it, would be found bestowing their labour upon it, which would be the truest sign of a real right in it, and those inheriting it, but not working it, would find them- selves, by their reduced means, under the necessity of disposing of it to those who would work it, and the interest of both the individual and the com- munity may be trusted to be sufficient to check any baneful effects to society through excessive diminu- tion of estate, and waste would be particularly guarded against. If the undue appropriation of past conquest had been simply allowed for the time, subject to dis- tribution taking effect soon after, both as regards the land itself and the . obligations attaching to its possession, the abuses of the period which are connected with that possession, and against which we are speaking, would not have been so prominent as they are. It will be scarcely necessary to touch upon the argument against distribution of the land, that though it may be concentrated in a few hands, its produce will not be the more encroached Il8 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND upon by its owner through that fact, and that the masses will still, therefore, have the same produce for their subsistence to work upon, and consequently live by, whether the land is concen- trated or distributed ; for the power of a landlord to consume the necessaries of life can in no condition exceed certain limits. We must say, upon this, that the results of concentration are not exactly seen here. A landlord can certainly not personally consume more of the necessaries of life in one state than in another, but it is possible for him to check the production of those necessaries more under certain circumstances than under others, and that is what we assert that he does under the effects of concentration, which places more land in his hands than he may require, or care to work, for his absolute wants. But there is also the fact that the conditions of toil for the labourer must be vastly different in the two cases. In the one, that of concentration, the labourer, without posses- sions, only procures the necessaries of life, if as much, and he has to forego the main part of what he produces to the landowner without a chance of property in the soil coming to him by descent on death or by his toil. In the other, that of distribution, he has the likelihood of a share of IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. I19 patrimony by inheritance ; he has also, the means, through the comparative independence such share would procure, of making his own terms for wages ; and he is in. a better position to enjoy all the produce which he raises, whether for necessaries, or for comfort, or for both. In considering any theory of the distribution of the land, there must be dismissed from the mind the notion that a general absolute equality of condition among men will, or can, be obtained by its adoption. The idea that such a tesult can be brought about generally in society with any degree of permanency under any institution is a delusion. The application of this theory can only tend to do away with the unjust differences that may exist ; and that is all, if we wish to succeed in it, that we can look to. That perfect equality is either just, sensible, or advisable, we are prepared to disprove. By a study of the laws of distribution we find that man has a right to the fruits of his labour, and to that which he procures by fair contract, and under gift and favour, when he obtains it from those rightly in possession ; and, under the best of laws, those who indulge in vice, are improvident, or are of inferior ability, must, as a rule, own a smaller share than the thrifty, the I20 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND industrious, and the meritorious. A law that pretended, therefore, to adjust the share of all to a scale of equality would be an outrage upon common sense ; and, of course, the .more able, the more meritorious, through their power, would ever disallow it. This difficulty alone, which the better class would of a certainty raise against equaliza- tion, affords potent reason against the possibility that may be assumed of its taking effect. But apart from this difficulty, which will be always insurmountable, it is in reasoning upon the very nature of property, which arises from production, contract, and gifts, that we come to conclude the absurdity of the dream ; for any one entitled to produce has the right to consume it there and then, or to store it for consumption later, or for purposes of reproduction ; and the consequence of this truth is that no other individual can be entitled to a share of that same produce, unless as a member of society, which must be acknow- ledged to have a claim to tax everything, so far only as is just and necessary, for that common protection of life by public services, which can only be provided through collection. When a man, by privation, by superior skill, or in his relations of life with others, has obtained IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 121 the advantage of possessions ; and when, by his further care, he has made those possessions fructify, it is utterly unreasonable to say that he should forego, for the purpose of equalizing circumstances, the advantage which is of his own creation, to the slothful, the improvident, those of inferior ability, who have consumed their produce and laid by no store. And it is nothing but the prompting of ignorance and low envy that will cause the less successful to crave for equality with those who have justly earned and obtained the larger share, under the circumstances named. Inequality of conditions is natural and just, as the result of natural inequality of ability, and will always exist to some extent. 122 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND CHAPTER XI. Irresponsibility of a legislative assembly, arising from hereditary political power vested in its members, viewed in connection with the purposes and foundation of political institutions generally. In examining the course which should regulate society in apportioning the natural agencies of the land and the property raised by labour through their act, we have found by the study of man's wants, and the rights created by those wants, that course deiined in a set of laws prescribing the general distribution, among the members of man- kind, of facilities to enable all to participate as much as possible in the possession and use of the natural agencies, and a further distribution among them, in the shape of estate in the land and actual property in its produce, in cases where either the estate or the produce had been created by labour, to dispose of as each, owning by those rights might rationally think fit to do, by gift or IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 23 otherwise, provided fair taxes were imposed on the transfer at death. And we have succeeded in laying down in incontrovertible terms that the application of those laws would be beneficial to man's condition, while the system under which all natural agencies are diverted and centralized in the hands of the few exists in violation of them, and, as a natural consequence, it has an effect upon the masses the very reverse of beneficial to them. The questions now to be solved are the follow- ing : (i) Can the principle of distribution as laid down be substituted, in face of the opposition likely to arise against it, for that of concentration ? (2) If the substitution is presumed possible, by what means is it to be effected ? To those questions we would reply that the practi- cability of the substitution can only be ascertained by attempting it, and that the proper process for introducing the new principle would be simply to attack by reversal, repeal, modification, or other- wise, the institutions and measures which have brought about or favour concentration. Relieved from that pressure, man's condition would immedi- ately improve, as the plant does when brought from foul air to pure, and a system of reconstruc- tion would formulate itself in time on the new 124 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND principle; and it should be understood, when we speak in this manner, that we consider schemes for counteracting concentration, but aiming at results of communism, absolute equality. Govern- ment farming of lands, as not reposing upon that basis, but as most likely to retard the distribution by the hold such dreams give to ridicule. This inquiry will, therefore, now be directed to the nature of the obnoxious political institutions and laws with which we should deal. Firstly, with reference to our political institutions, it has been already pointed out in these pages, that in this country there prevails conspicuously among the landowning class, or aristocracy, the power to serve selfish ends, to the injury of society, through the concentration of the land in their hands, and that the power is exercised to a very large extent, although the object of mankind on forming itself into society was to overrule all such evil tendencies for purely private ends. The power exhibits itself especially in the composition of the Upper House of the legislature, which is made up from those classes, and in the hereditary character attaching to the position of its members. It can be shown beyond a doubt, we believe, by a review of the objects of society, and the relations IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 125 of society to its members, that an institution within it so composed and of such a character is thoroughly illogical and defective. Before proceeding further, it will be necessary to enter upon a definition of the terms which will be used at this stage of our inquiry. By the people is meant a compact whole of every one that makes up mankind, and the word " society" must be taken as equivalent to those groups existing as nations whose members are associated. By Government and individuals, or subjects, is meant only a part of that whole, having a distinct place and purpose within it. In the people, as it makes up everybody and everything appertaining to it in the aggregate, it is taken that supremacy resides, and that the Government, of which the branches may be de- scribed as the executive and the legislative, can at the utmost only be possessed of power delegated to it by that whole, and must always be dependent and receive its position from it, and be bound in duty to it. The elective body is simply a medium between the people and the Government for con- veying to the latter, by its appointment of parties which they deem suitable for the above legislative and executive offices, an expression of the wishes and wants of the people as near as can be. And 126 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND it is through their imperative wants, their inherent superior power to satisfy them, that the people are supreme. Sovereignty of the people we take to specially exist over Government and the individual or subject ; and the wishes of the people are what the elective body, members of Governments and the subject, should endeavour to ascertain for their guidance. The obligation binding men together in society under a political body has been heretofore a long, continuous, and grave subject of discussion. Some have stated the foundation for the authority of that body to be purely in force, others in paternal authority, others in the divine will ; and these we have seen successively rejected as conferring no right upon any one over others : the true foundation has therefore been looked for elsewhere, and it is commonly believed to be in a convention between one and all, under which the whole, that is to say the people, are the sovereign by its will, and Governments are the appointment, and the laws are the expression of that will, constituting together civil government. According to these principles, no Government or law can have right in themselves, except on the assumption that they are sanctioned, either directly IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. \2J or indirectly, openly or on sufferance, by wish of the people, and it is in that way only that they can justly be held as appointments by the people, and the expression of their wishes in view of their wants, as they should be. A Government or laws established independently of such control would be mere force. There is a principle within us which interests us ardently in our well-being and preservation, and reason points to these as the original object and aim of men uniting into society. The principle is universal, and causes unanimity in the working of its members for that end, the attainment of which mainly depends upon a fair and orderly distribution being made among all of the natural agencies and labour's earnings, the fundamental rule of action being to further the interests of each in the manner most justly consistent with the interests of all. Although the origin of society cannot be traced to any date, and the ties binding together its members — which we believe to be in their indebtedness to it for protection and support — are not understood in general, we know that it comprises nearly the totality of the people in each nation of the civilized world, and its existence as a voluntary association is proved by the loyalty generally 128 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND prevailing, under ordinary circumstances, of the large class of the working and well-intentioned. That the aims and wishes of society can only be for its own general good ; that those aspirations impel it to seek protection in the maintenance of order, and that with order and the gradual light of its discoveries it must inevitably, on the whole, make progress in its welfare, is clear. Its latent power, under the influence of those con- trolling tendencies within itself, for carrying its ends is also beyond a doubt. We see in history ever-recurring proof of its action and superiority under the two laws of order and progress combined, in its overthrow, from time to time, of authority made to serve private and individual interest, to the injury of those that are public. In this country, and to a great degree in other countries, society has already reduced the autocrat, and to the rabble it has left little else but voice for clamour ; for royalty with us exercises no political power. The position has been of late hereditary, simply for the purpose of keeping out competitors for it, and checking the disturbance which would certainly often accompany selection to it. The king or queen reigns to ward off aspirants, and does not rule ; yet they have a great hold upon the people. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 29 In the position they occupy they have an oppor- tunity of giving example, and, while keeping aloof from politics, of also doing good socially. These duties are, in fact, imperative upon them ; and happily for the nation they conform to them, and thus constitute a useful integral party of society. The rabble have become little more than a safety- valve for expression of grievances, and society judges and settles as to its correctness, and always in due time controls their effervescence and extra- vagance; and in nearly all civilized countries here- ditary aristocracies, like hereditary autocracies, have become extinct. But those conquests over selfish- ness have not been rapid, for the wisdom and processes of society in measures of execution are slow, and this is the chief reason why hereditary autocracies and hereditary aristocracies continue in existence at all ; and from these facts, showing the natural constitution and objects of society, there can be no other conclusion but that all political institutions should be subject to it. The general appropriation of the land by the aristocracy, followed by its wilful concentration under an agrarian constitution, made up by laws and customs which form the bulwark of their position, causes that body to be menacing at all times to K 130 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND both the Crown and the people ; and the House, con- sisting of the chief members of the aristocracy, having interests identical with them, strengthens their position. Proofs of the spirit animating the aristocracy and the power they wield, appear con- stantly in the successful obstructiveness of the House to any measure proposed, against the system they subsist by, and in the encroachments they have made from time to time upon the people, the total result being that the evils of the system are persis- tently continuing through the instrumentality of the House, and there is no appeal against its decisions. It is a logical assumption, also from general experience, that superior ability is not the infallible accompaniment of wealth in the person of those attaining to the latter by the laws of inheritance, and it may be rather taken as a rule, with the members of the aristocracy and the House in whose case succession to riches is confined to a small section of mankind, that the scale of ability among men is immeasurably higher outside its walls. The strength of the House is, therefore, not to be ascribed to talent, and the absence of that qualification would be sufficient condemnation of it. From these facts we are driven to state that although the predecessors of those holding the IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 13 1 hereditary offices may have shown a certain con- nection with society in obtaining Magna Charta, still, by their having released themselves since from the natural obligations attaching to their occu- pancies of the land, by the burthens they have thrown upon the people to effect that relief, by the exclusiveness of their position and the accumulation of their riches, they are severed from society; they exist and thrive by it on conditions opposed to its laws ; and, moreover, they have not the proper quali- fications for government. Although the peers are careful to enlist in their ranks some who are brilliant by their talent, and who have rendered service to the State, still the number thus added is small compared with the whole voting power of the House, and owing to the preponderance of their antagonism to all other interests, they stand before us as a mere force, whose prominent object and effect is to promote order and reap enjoyment for their personal ends. The truth cannot fail to prevail against it, that the similarity of interests of its members their dissimilarity from those of society, and the hereditary character of their office and power are at the bottom of this action, and by the laws which we have shown to govern society, the due attain- 132 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND merit of its aims and proper ascendency cannot be accomplished under an authority thus constituted. While we are upon the subject of society, it will, no doubt, be well to state, in further con- firmation of our conclusion against independence of political authority, how we realize to ourselves an executive and legislative form of government under society, especially as we have admitted the slow growth "of its wisdom and processes. The following is the explanation. The word "society" in these pages must be considered equivalent to that of the people. It not only comprises the State, which is the same thing as the commonwealth or political body of a country, but it includes more, for it has wide social customs, influences, arrangements, aspirations, quite outside of politics. Its members are so numerous, so widespread, and in many cases so employed at absorbing occupations, that they cannot, for the most part, possess the knowledge necessary for sharing in the administration and organizing duties devolving upon a Government, and their will is consequently so varying in cases, when they have an opinion in such matters, that they cannot be said to have a will at all for them. It would, therefore, be absurd to pretend to realize an execu- IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 33 tive or legislative form of government under society, or the people with each member taking a part in its direction. This has been attempted, and the supposed will of the people in executive measures and legislative as well, has been advanced as ruling absolutely. But as its expression could only be assumed from enunciations or votes at some chief assembly — and really it could not be assumed at all in that manner, where simply sections or parties wotld be acting and prevail, and the people generally would not be competent in such detail — more mischief has been done so, than need be related on this occasion. The State, or political body under civil govern- ment, would consist generally of a legislative authority, with officers for its executive duties, over whom there would be a chief, called king or president. Besides these, there would be the purely elective body of members of society, appointing the functionaries to the legislative and executive offices. This body, though within the State, would be distinct from the legislature and the executive, and, though acting for society, would only act on its behalf to the best of its ability, but not represent it. We may take it that in a good Government the executive and legis- 134 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND lative functionaries would only be subject to the elective body in regard to their appointments, and that the elective body should be on as wide a basis as possible, in order to best convey the wishes of society in those appointments ; and that society, under all circumstances, would reserve its supreme control over legislative, executive, and elective, bodies to exercise it as it might deem fit. Wherever Government exists for national purposes, however imperfect it may be, however appointed, if it is subject to laws, it can only belong to, and be for, the society it ministers to. But to be in their right, all the members of the State should acknow- ledge their allegiance to that society and to the principle of its formation, which consists in meeting their wants and wishes to the best of their power, and in all their measures they should act up to that principle, and before all things they should be qualified for their post, and confine themselves to its duties. Wherever union exists between society and the Government, owing to its beneficent measures, in that union will be the chief force of government. But a force of another description is required also in government to assure that support, a force of orga- nization, scheming, initiating, and administering in the right direction, which its members can only find IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 35 within themselves. Society is truly always right in its instincts and impulses relating to its main objects; but its character, as already stated, is diver- sity of leaning, hardly to be called will, as to the ways and means of carrying out these objects and as to minor interests. This should be dominated. It is, therefore, in the very essence of government to consist of members to govern the many, and not to be governed by them. In this nature of all governing power there reappears, in an intense form, the difficulty that society has at the outset before it, viz. that of making its members work matters in the interest of each, in the way that will be most consistent with the interest of all ; for through that nature the officials of Government must unfailingly come under the influence of individual selfish tendencies, and must be most liable to use society for their own personal pur- poses. It is in these facts that we at once see the inconsistency of any part or body of the Govern- ment being independent of the people, and that a check should be exercised, either directly or indi- rectly, in their selection through electors or dele- gates appointed for that simple purpose, who would in their turn acknowledge the higher control or sovereignty of the people ; and it is thus further confirmed that all executive Governments can and 136 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND should work under the people, or society, whose course and action in matters we hope to explain later on. At this further stage of our inquiry, we are again brought back to the conclusion that the working of government is logically wrong, if it is not conducted in view of the position, objects, rights, and aims of society, arid that if, either intentionally or errone- ously, or by the nature of its constitution, it does not carry out these, but directs its labours from them, and is, moreover, independent, irresponsible, and beyond power of appeal, it should be modified, and if it is not modified in the course of time, it is bound to fall by the force of the tendencies which naturally exist in the human race, and to which it must be opposed ; and we are thus further strength- ened in saying, that as the hereditary privilege of legislation in a political institution can only arise and maintain itself naturally in an assembly com- posed of members all united in one interest — of the land — and largely possessed of it, and the privilege does, and must create such exclusiveness, irrespon- sibility, and opposition to the people's interests by the position it gives and the authority it con- fers, and, moreover, it is a rule of mediocrity, the privilege is thoroughly bad in principle, and should therefore be abolished. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 37 CHAPTER XII. lefiil effect of irresponsibility in political institutions, and their constant tendency in that condition to concentrate both land and power. CLAIM to hereditary political power for any m of government is nothing else than a plea for due means to support it, and it reveals the con- Dusness of weakness in it which should not St. The parties holding the reins of govern- nt should be such people in succession as would ^e the necessary power in them, and it is only iety who would possess and delegate that. It therefore, to society, in one way or the other, its assent or its positive sanction to appoint- nts, that government should look for its power ; I this is precisely a proceeding which is abso- ;ly blocked by a Government being hereditary, ere appears, however, no necessity to abolish House or displace any of its members. It is Y required to settle by legal enactment that 138 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND there shall be no longer succession to its political power for its members by inheritance, which can be done by constitutional means. Why all this clamour against hereditary power? some people will say. Does it not exist in transmission of the Crown, or of a fortune on death of the holder of each of these ? and do not these give power to their possessors ? The comparison is mistaken, for it would be unreasonable that a man's means should be transferred compulsorily on death to any but his offspring, and the power such means carry with them cannot be assumed for one moment beyond the control of society, provided their owner is limited in his political authority. The power of royalty, as we have stated, is also simply in social status. But the legislative dignitary, if he holds his office by right of inheritance, becomes independent of, and yet controls, every one ; and there is the further wrong, that when it is found to work badly, it can only be reformed by reforming itself, or by means tantamount to a revolution. It is in diametrical opposition to the records of history and to the rational inferences to be drawn from the nature of that institution to say that whatever is admirable in the condition of England is attributable to its aristocracy and chief IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 39 hereditary political institution. We see in the English people a greatness that owes nothing either to a class or to good fortune. With a country hemmed in all round by a tempestuous sea, a sky cheerless through the greater part of the year, a soil only yielding fruit in return for considerable labour, and a constitution which has deprived millions of every successive generation of an oppor- tunity of working the soil, a vast number of its sons have taken to the sea, battled with its storms, and carried what little they had to most distant climes, till in their perseverance they succeeded in making settlements and in planting the national flag in the four quarters of the globe, and they have thus formed an empire upon which, as the saying goes, the sun never sets. Its colonies, its foreign industry and works, the number of its vessels engaged in trade, its fleets of war-ships, the most formidable upon the ocean, have given it a supre- macy over that element to which there is nothing like or to be read of in the history of any other nation. This success is simply owing to the learn- ing, energy, valour, of a superior race admittedly ranking * in martial character with the first nations of the world ; and the only wonder is that, with the * Bossuet, Voltaire. 140 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND spirit they possess, they should have been so sub- missive to the lot made for them at home. Some allege that this power is through the protection which the sea affords them ; but it is evident that the position would have been worthless in inferior hands. The protection they have through their coast is thanks also to the measures they have used in fortifying it, but all that is nothing to the protection which the reputation of their fame has won for them. Not only has the institution been entirely disconnected with these successes, but it must by its very nature have operated as a draw- back. While there is wanted in the chief councils of a nation all the learning, the genius, the integrity, and other qualities that can be brought together from the ranks of the whole nation, the country has only had the chance of what a few families forming the class which has ruled through their highest House could bring of these qualities, and the fact cannot be contested that the average ability of an aggregate of families through genera- tions must have been considerably below that of the whole people. Therefore, the people have been for centuries under the rule of mediocrity, and if further proof is wanted to convince one of this, there need only be reference made to the IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 141 obstructive nature of the House measures and the almost utter absence of leaders in it. We read, in the works of a great French writer* upon the decHne and fall of the Roman Empire, the following : — " The founders of the ancient re- publics divided equally the soil, which alone makes a people powerful ; that is to say, forms them into a well-regulated society. That made also a good army, each having an equal interest, and a very great one, in defending his country. But when the laws were no longer rigidly observed, they came to the point at which they are at present very much with us — the avarice of some, the prodigality of others, caused the lands to pass into comparatively few hands — and it was then that the arts were introduced for the mutual wants of the rich and the poor. The result was that there were hardly any soldiers or citizens without which a state (and a state even in its disorder must subsist) would perish ; for the soil, formerly serving to maintain these, came in use for the support of slaves and artisans, who were mere instruments of luxury for its few possessors — and those sort of people are hardly proper for war — they were low and cor- rupted by the luxury of towns, and often by their * Montesquieu. 142 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND art itself, in addition to which, as they really had no country and could exercise their calling else- where, they had little to lose or gain." This description gives a key to the situation of a great many states in the more advanced stages of their existence — showing where their power and weakness lie, and the cause of their degeneration. The social state in England, although brought about by causes differing from those which acted upon Roman society, is the same as that just described as the later state of Rome. By the combined effects of conquest and faults in legisla- tion, after a while there were only two sorts of people in this country, the same as at Rome — those who suffered servitude, and those who for their own particular interest sought to make others suffer it. When in a country there are none besides masters and their dependents, there would naturally be order, which the chiefs would, in self-complaisance, be most likely to describe as a state of general happiness ; and we may well conceive that to have been the condition of things in England for a long time, in consequence of there being only the two classes. But by the side of these there has developed, as we have seen, a third class, which, by possessions accumulated through IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 143 foreign adventure and brought to the rehef of the oppressed at home, has been gradually becoming a rival of the higher class, and has been allying itself by material aid and teaching with the lower class in a general attempt at their effectual enfranchise- ment. The movement is gaining ground, and the possessions and wealth, by means of which the few of the higher class have hitherto succeeded in ruling over the people as a nation, barely now enable them to control their dependents. And is it not pre- posterous that such a section of the nation should dream of withstanding the movement ? Their riches, however great they may be, by contrivance, are become gradually less in comparison with those of the rival class ; and besides the disadvantage of inferior ability, they have that of want of sympathy in the people. History shows all such privileged classes to have been thoroughly hated. Jealousy, dissension, and. an intense party-spirit have ever been fomented through their rule ; and the proper resources faihng them in their possessions and ability to constantly resist attacks, they have in- variably succumbed, and not seldom to faction, long before the term of expiry of the nations they governed, and, as a rule, their defeat has been followed by the supremacy of the military power. 144 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND which is the worst lot that can befall a people. It is in order that the country's government should be in the best condition to prevail against factions and against the disorder resulting in society, from that other pretension to administration of every person- age having share in the state, that it becomes now so necessary to substitute for government a much wider basis than the one it possesses under its aristocratic regime ; and the extension, as already mentioned, should be in admitting to the power of appointing rulers a vastly increased number of citizens, under laws restraining each officer of the State to well-defined duties ; in promoting a system of distribution which would cause the possessions and wealth to become divided among the community as much as possible according as they are earned. Consider the state of things that would follow the abolition of independent hereditary legislative power and the laws upholding it ! Government would then have no one to look to, except to the nation, who would hold the supreme authority, and, by the fulfilment of distribution, also all the wealth ; and the nation in their turn would look to all those performing the duties of the State, even of a minor nature, for the care of the common interests, and bring forward for the purpose its greatest men. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 145 Consider what a source of emulation that would be to the men of high merit! What power would spring into existence against the ill-disposed, the dreamers, and the brawlers, from the nation at large having that wealth, and consequently that control ! Compare that state of things with the effects of the Government of an aristocracy, under which in reality a few families have the pretension to dominate over every one — Government, instead of leaning upon such a puny section, with its idiocy and obstinacy, craft and poor devices, liable to be defeated by surprise at almost any time, would trust for support in all the best elements of the associated members of society ; and instead of that section's vain, futile, and provocative measures to keep every- thing under subjection, there would be the power of the nation itself, holding effectually by consent the masses together, and constituting a far greater force for effectuating the proper objects of all government. The word "nation," as meant through these pages, applies to the people. In many instances that latter word is taken as representing only the commonalty of society, but it should be understood here to describe the collected members of the human race in each country, rich and poor, young and old, of both sexes and all classes, far exceeding L 146 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND in number the commonalty or any other aggregate of individuals having possibly a share in the State. It is clear that State matters can come directly only under a small portion of the people or nation, however much we may wish to extend its voting powers generally ; and as the voters too can have no direct control in legislation and administration, the multitude which constitute the people outside of the actual legislative and administrative branches must vastly outnumber those directly engaged in them. What, then, will it be asked, are the power and action of that multitude which in reality repre- sent the people, and of whom a few only hold the real offices of government, yet control everything in the end ? This needs explanation. The people are the combinations of the human race, and as no members of the race can subsist as a people unless combined, it may be said that together they are the human race; and though our thoughts when we speak of the people may attach themselves more par- ticularly to the divisions of mankind and its nations and states, it is to the qualities, tendencies, and action of the race itself as embracing the whole that we must bring our mind in following up our subject. The span of life of nations, though immeasurably longer than that of the individual, has limits that IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 147 we can appreciate ; but we are unable to trace by computation of years the beginning of the human race. We cannot even imagine the age of the stupendous monuments of its hands, which we see crumbling and sanded up in the various parts of the globe ; nor can we calculate its end. It is the greatest manifestation that we know of life, surpassing in marvel by its intellectual endow- ments all the wonders of the physical universe. Through the mysterious power of its growth, its seed has so multiplied in successive generations as to have become innumerable, and the number of its members living at any one time can scarcely be counted. They constitute together a mass of life ever intent upon the object of its wishes, now moving on, now swaying from it under the influence of inspirations, wants, passions, and vices in a course marked by alternations of conflict and peace, toil and leisure, sufferings and joy ; and the conflict most noticeable is that between the ten- dencies for purely evil selfish purposes and those leading on to a common and good purpose. From historical records we see proofs of this advance and retrogression of mankind — in its development into groups from that of the family to that of the nation, in its Government and State institutions, in 148 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND the frequent displacement of its established popu- lation by vast hordes overrunning other countries, in the subjection of some of its members to slavery by the others and in their release, in the rise and disintegration of its empires, and in its wars and revolutions. At the same time, notwithstanding these drawbacks, we see from the same source marks of its universal progress on the whole, in the development of its discoveries, in the per- fection of its language, and the gradual enfran- chisement of its members. The human race is free from error in the wishes which are common to all ; for those wishes, being for the general good, cannot be otherwise than for the good of each. It is also the embodiment of truth when it is ascer- tained, and it seeks undeviatingly for it ; for it would be deceiving itself if it deceived any. There must, therefore, be in the race for its purposes a latent force, immeasurable, like its existence, gene- rated by the union of its members, which surpasses anything that our language can describe. It makes and overthrows kingdoms, gives the stamp of per- manency to reputation, and undoes it. Its great men, though appearing to lead it, receive their inspiration from it; and all these results occur without its being possible to give any name for IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 49 the authorship of most of its deeds. Its activity is greatest when it is agitated by want, suffering, or fear. But in the passing of measures, it must be noted that its force is not imparted to them by its taking an active share. Its activity exhibits itself in mere acts of disapproval and revolution, and its approval is more often to be assumed from absence of exhibition of it than from actual record. Assemblages taking up any public cause, however large and imposing they may be, cannot be viewed as the people ; they may at times be the manifes- tation of a wrong suffered by some of the people, but it is oftener that they are organized by leaders seeking personal ends, and in every case it is a matter for the exercise of our judgment, whether they represent a real grievance or not. The contrast between the effect of the united working of the human tendencies toward the fulfilment of a state of well-being common to all, and that of the separate action of each to promote his own particular happiness by sacrificing the interests of others, is equally marked in the course the two opposite impulses take and in the results they bring about. Notwithstanding the rise and decay of the generations that compose the race, the apparent break thus occurring in its exertions, 150 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND and the changes consequent thereon, there is constant unity of purpose in the common course. The number of those joining it gradually increases, and they become intimately bound together on a principle of mutual support, encouraging, as stated before in these pages, above all things order and peace ; while the individuals who follow simply their own lusts, in swerving from the common point, cannot fail to be divided and at war with others, and by their isolated position, as compared with that of the community, they must in the end become a prey to the very conflicts they awake. The first effect of the universal instinct to work together for common protection was the establishment of society, which, as it extended, became formed into associations, having separate and rational objects. This instinct and its results are the most distinguishing and most conspicuous character of the race. As far as it is possible to trace it, the first form of association was that of the clan, which was a development of that of the family. We afterwards find it in the village community, which in course of time rose to be a city, and soon these villages and cities became associated as provinces, and the provinces becoming numerous, they in their turn confederated as IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 151 nations — and thus were nations born throughout the world — and that form seems to be the highest and last combination of the sort existing. Each association is based upon the common interest binding its members ; their union is directed against all elements hostile to it, as well those within their circle as those without ; and all minor differences and rivalry are sunk, on the part of the great majority of each group, in view of any harm or danger to it ; and, what is more, the combinations of the interests of each make way almost invariably before the interests of any higher association of which it may form part. Thus, all spirit of rivalry between families vanishes on the sound of common alarm ; the members of the village will join in arms to defend the province, and the provinces will forget their differ- ences when it is a question of repelling an invasion of the fatherland, the home, by the nation. Proof of this is in the public submission to discipline and taxation and measures for repressing crime, and more particularly in the spirit of patriotism, which seems to warm every heart for his country. Equally conspicuous is the opposition to this natural united working of communities on the part of the individual seeking his gratification at 152 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND the expense of them, and, apart from its mani- festation in deeds of crime, this individual propensity has been nowhere so particularly shown as in the exercise of political power. Some explanation will be further required with this. We may assume that the necessity of govern- ment was felt from the time that men first associated, and that its establishment in some form was necessarily a part of the combination. For government being the indispensable purpose of association, the two must evidently have been co-existing and dependent upon each other in the origin of their existence. It is in the nature of things that such should have been the case ; it follows, therefore, that government, whenever it came into existence through association, was a voluntary creation, and we may take the matter for granted. But looking at the events related in the pages of history, their combined rule must have been of short duration. It is difficult to tell through what complications the change occurred, but the facts show that the power which must have been first delegated, or allowed to parties for the purposes of government, was afterwards usurped, and the multitude had to submit to it forcibly. It is in the nature of government through the individuals IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 153 that compose it to abuse its power either for a direct personal advantage or for the better enforce- ment of their measures. The first rulers in insinuat- ing or forcing themselves into power had little difficulty in accomplishing their purposes under the darkness of the times, when ignorance was prevalent. Hence the laws they made it then their oppor- tunity to enact, which exalted their position and made the subject defenceless against them. Hence that compact of the chiefs already mentioned in these pages under which, violating all natural rights, they fixed laws of property in their own interest, ensuring to themselves the fruits of the land, and they opened up the long era not yet closed of ever-increasing degradation for those who work it, strangely coincident with developing prosperity among its owners. General association was then at an end, though its spirit survived and the great ma- jority became yoked together in a state of subjection. To bring about this state of things, the rulers, as much through error as vice, would arrogate to themselves an infinity of privileges having no justification. They would claim a divine right to regulate at their will the actions of their subjects, and to dispose with the same freedom of their property and lives; and they would make the 154 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND effect of their unbridled passions universally felt, by heaping taxes upon the people and sacri- ficing them in infamous wars. The facts are undeniable, and, strange to say, the ministers of religion openly laid it down that those rulers in their worst and most cruel conduct should be obeyed, and that they were accountable for their actions to God alone.* No stronger argument can be brought to show the bad nature of the end they sought than in the nature of their teachings, the benefit they derived for themselves from that teaching and from their institutions and laws ; while at the same time the general condition of mankind presented worse cases of distress, of developed passions, and of intensity of vice than in the pure state of nature, which they were in- tended to improve. And the fact of these passions and vices having acquired force and aggravated the condition of the multitude under those insti- tutions, might itself be assumed conclusive proof against them. But, above all, there was that error in the action of the chiefs that while they simply made up a government truly dependent upon the * ' ' Les N^rons les Domitiens eux-mSmes n'^taient comptables qu'a Dieu de Tabus de leur puissance." — Mandement de Mgr. de Beaumont, archevfique de Paris, 1762. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 155 people, they held pretension to a sovereignty which did not reside in them. As naturally would be the case, the spirit of association caused in time a reaction against the. errors and abuses in those ancient institutions, which arose from such attempts at usurpation, and against the factious spirit which was lying in wait for the first opportunity to take advantage of their downfall, and much bloodshed ensued ; but to a great extent both abuses and factions have been triumphed over, though there are too many remnants of these still. And there is not a constitution in the world containing so much of the decrepit remains as the constitution of this country does in the hereditary character of its legislature and the laws that uphold it, making it particularly independent, and giving it thereby a status which is absurd, relative to the sovereignty residing in the people, on whom it should really depend. The baneful effects of the absence of control over government are here evident, and it becomes at every step of our inquiry more clearly demon- strated that association in a proper spirit can alone afford the means of establishing that control ; not associations of people meeting in the dark, com- mitting themselves to foul deeds, and consecrating 156 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND the same in view of the pretended good of the ends they have in view, nor of people who, in accepting an existing form of government, give themselves the trouble of instructing the executive and the legislative powers in their task of carrying it out ; but an association, as it originally stood, co-existing with government, in its highest sense, that of the nation composed of the well-intentioned, who con- stitute the masses, having at heart the common interest, the well-being, the good reputation, the honour of the community at home and abroad, who would elect the officers of State best fitted in their view to serve these objects — an association wide open as the day, in which each would state his wrongs and hear those of others, all the time identifying himself in his acts and affections with what would benefit the whole — an association in which each seeking to support the whole and looking in return for support from it -^ould mani- fest itself more in public opinion and the conduct of its members, when there is a question of serving the objects of progress and order, than in assem- blages, and would train every rising generation to feelings of patriotism, a due sense of responsibility of their political duties, and, above all, the dis- cretion they should exercise under these. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 157 It seems beyond a doubt that the association to be properly fruitful should be as numerous as possible, for by its number alone can it reflect truly the sentiments, affections, sense of the country, and counteract the evil tendencies to usurpation existing among them ; therefore it should not, as now, include only those holding a stake, as it is said in the way of property, but all of proper age who are deserving, and toil and suffer, and can be brought to understand the duties their functions carry with them. Taking the term in its generally accepted meaning, there never existed a true, pure de- mocracy, and there never will exist one. Inde- pendently of the fact that it would be against the natural order of things for the multitude to govern, and it would be, moreover, physically im- possible for them to do so, the power to rule, claimed so confidently under that form as an inherent right, and insisted on as the undoubted privilege of every one, is the rankest encroachment imaginable upon the sovereignty of the people, which is ever tending as a whole towards the adjustment of all interests. And the exercise of such a right is an interference with the powers of government, which can only act as a body ; and there is imme- 158 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND diate manifestation of the vice of the form, in its members always pretending to govern absolutely by numbers and by crushing majorities, while this mode of government is one merely adopted conven- tionally as the most expedient generally. The abuse by which an aristocracy or a monarchy assume sovereignty may be gradual, leading only after a time in the one case to the establishment of oligarchy, and in the other to that of tyranny. But in the case of a de- mocracy, the interference of the Government with the supremacy of the people, and that of every one with the Government itself, is immediate on its institution, and it becomes at once a mob govern- ment.* It is only when the form is mixed — and then, of course, it ceases also to be a true demo- cracy — with both the aristocratic and monarchic forms, or either of them, that it can claim to last in any way. The combination of the three in one form of government appears certainly to be the best calculated for balancing the powers repre- sented by each of them respectively, provided, however, that it has no element of escape from control of the supreme power of the people. * Popular government, as some understand it, appears also to present many of the defects laid against the above form. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 159 CHAPTER XIII. Proposed abolition of all hereditary political power, and reversal of all laws supporting concentration of the land in this country. Let us now enumerate the laws, customs, and measures which have given to the hereditary aristocracy the independence, life, and strength for concentration and landed property it possesses, while the aristocracy itself has done all in its power to maintain those laws, which state of things shows that if either the laws or the aristocracy as con- stituted were to die out, both, as a matter of course, would become extinct ; but, as in considering insti- tutions and laws which require reversing we have already taken the case of our chief legislative insti- tution as the institution at fault in its hereditary character, we must now deal separately also with the laws which have caused and perpetuated it. The laws in question have been already referred to at so great length in our inquiry, that it will l6o ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND be sufficient in these our concluding remarks upon them if, in a few words, we confine ourselves to their general enumeration. The suggestion is that any law conferring hereditary political power should be abolished. All laws should be repealed which in any way fetter the transfer of landed property, and those of primogeniture and entail should be the first to be done away with. All statutes which enable a proprietor to burden his landed property with settlements should be put an end to. The laws of inheritance with regard to land should be assimilated to the laws of succession of personal property ; and the principles of legislation generally for personal property, the chief of which is to realize free ownership of same, should, except as to taxation, be made to apply to real property as much as possible. Copyhold and manorial rights should be abolished, and rights should be conferred upon leaseholders to redeem their leases ; common lands should be strictly watched and preserved, and allowed to be en- croached upon only for some public benefit. Tenant right and fair rents and fixity of tenure should be subjects of legislation, and laws should be enacted for enabling the land to be transferred easily and cheaply. The Act 12 Car. II., c. 24, IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. l6l should also be repealed, of which mention will be made when we are upon the subject of taxation. By the reform limited ownership,* the greatest curse of the land system, should cease, all the bene- ficial effects of free ownership would be restored, the land would be entirely broken up in time, and it would pass also to the hands of the multitude, to whom the State should look in the end both for its strength and support. So little would the change affect any but those in unjust possession and those dependent upon them, and the number is so small, that it may be safely said that a united people need only decide that the reform shall be for it to be brought about without either revolution or agitation. It may possibly be said that this exposition has been too exclusively upon questions of principle to be of much practical use ; but still it must not be forgotten that the settlement of principles has ever been man's main guide in practice ; for how could he have obtained the most of his knowledge but for the reasoning which he has been able to found upon them ? It does * The baneful effects of this system upon the working of the land have been so fully exposed in many valuable works, that no morethan a simple allusion to them can be here necessary. M l62 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND not, however, appear possible to allow that we have discussed principles even nearly exclusively ; for we have not only proved absolutely that those which we propose, viz. the sovereignty of the people and distribution, are true, but we have shown also that they cannot fail, on their being manifestly adopted, to cause the reversal of the old measures opposed to them, to act as an antidote to those measures and their effects, and to be a perfectly good foundation for a new order of things. It was from the experiences of nature, of man and his wants, that we first arrived con- clusively at the proper principle for dealing with them, which consists in a just distribution of nature's products, guided by the extent of his labour in utilizing them. By the facts disclosed in history, we further proved that that principle has been deviated from, and that the violation has been in a monopoly of the produce, which monopoly a few have succeeded in exercising chiefly through the independence of political power and that the result of the monopoly has been widespread privation, and that not only are the monopoly and the independent power found to be patent facts blended together, but they are shown to have been advocated as actual principles. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 63 By the facts of history we also proved that the control or limiting of political power in the hands of the people holding it has always, on the other hand, reduced the monopoly and brought about beneficial changes with distribution. We have from these clear grounds for ruling the overthrow of the two pernicious principles, monopoly and independence of government, by substituting the opposite principles in the first instance, and for maintaining that the change, so far as it has been effected, has been of great advantage, and it only wants to be made more completely in order to be fully beneficial, and the substitution of the oppo- site principles is as a first step absolutely indis- pensable. But when it comes to the question of framing the new measures (if any) required for carrying out the new principles, the changes would be necessarily gradual and slow, after the adoption of the principles occurring only when opportunity " has been offered of full appreciation from proper experience and by discussion of the most desirable way to apply them. A glance at the systems conceived by the one and the other of comprehensive reforms, involving immediate reconstruction on a large scale and much detail, which have been in vogue from time l64 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND to time, shows, in the impulses causing them in the general want of knowledge of their sympathizers and the character of the fundamental principles upon which they rest, that they have not the elements of success, and that the clamour of party is not even evidence in their favour. It is notorious that there is great exchange of argument as well as abuse between the victims of the present system in advocating reform and those who, benefiting by things as they are, oppose it. The sufferers are held responsible for their distress ; and it is ascribed solely to vice, such as improvidence, corruption, sloth, immorality, in- temperance, stated to abound with them ; and their projects of improvements are especially attributed to the same evil source in envy and addictedness to plunder. The gainers by the present system are, on the other hand, branded as simply oppressors ; and there is really cause for the mutual expression in regard to the exist- ence of these wrongs and vice on both sides, to which might very well be added the accusation of absence of proper reasoning in their overlooking the cause of the vices themselves. It will be well, in order to arrive at useful results from our in- quiry, to recall again to mind what in reality is IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 65 the foundation of that contrast of excessive want and plenty which we see among people. It will be admitted, on reasoning, that the vice that accompanies want is its effect more than its cause, and that it results mainly from privation, either inflicted or dreaded, in a low condition of life ; and the vices of the higher order will be allowed, through the same course, to be the off- spring of a position unduly attained. They arise on both sides from the strife ever going on between the individual and society, in which certain subjects triumph beyond all measure over others — a strife which is the natural result of human selfish tendencies, and which it is the duty of government to control. The opinion of the generality as to their respective rights and wrongs in such matters is not founded much upon an intellectual operation. The one and the other appropriate what they can, and the accusa- tions they level against each other are little more than manifestations of feeling under provocation, which the opposition of interests of those who succeed and those who fail would be apt to awake ; for let the parties triumphant to-day fall into adverse circumstances, or let those in poverty grow suddenly to affluence, as promptly will you see a l66 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND very large proportion of the people thus brought into new conditions alter their line of argument to suit their change of interests. In no case is this purely selfish influence in the moulding of opinion so conspicuous as it is in the support given by many to the subversive schemes to which we have alluded. Those schemes are too complicated for the comprehension of the multitude, but they offer prospects of a greatly beneficial change, particularly to those who are in the lowest condition of society, from their want of means and education ; and it is noticeable that it is that class that is especially, I may say almost exclusively, attracted to them, which shows the want of foundation of the schemes in the general intellect of the country ; and, added to this, there is against them that the expressions of enlightened opinion in their favour are very few indeed. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 67 CHAPTER XIV. Schemes of socialism, or communism of property, an ill-advised reaction against its concentration. Independently of the fact that it would not only be outside of the object of this inquiry, but inconsistent with its principles, to prepare an elaborate scheme of reform and reconstruction of government, it will be necessary for us to show more particularly that the schemes existing of the sort, although they may be the production of genius in some cases, and they have received the approbation of many, repose almost invariably on a false principle, to which are to be attributed their complications and their failure, and we pro- pose to review them shortly, but in the mean time some preliminary remarks will be necessary. We have already proved that the rights of man in property are solely created by his labour. They are purely the effect of the embodiment 1 68 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND of his forces by that agency in another object. They carry user, sale, and gift of the property, with claim to compensation in the event of the State depriving him of the same. But these rights exist subject to a right generally possessed by mankind in the spontaneous agencies of nature, by means of which his labour can alone be exercised and supported, and to his not interfering with the share others may have in that right, or any other rights they may be possessed of; and these constitute the foundation^ though perhaps not generally accounted for, of the institution of individual property, on which the economical arrangements of society have always rested. And it is the tendency of mankind to make the laws of property conform to these rights ; but, un- fortunately, the laws generally of property have never yet conformed to the principles on which really the justification of property rests, and the individual, in a vast number of cases, has succeeded under them in appropriating natural agencies and products and the result of other people's labour in a measure outside of all justice. Hence a reaction among the victims to restrain individuals from such excesses by laws of property totally different from those in force. The schemes of IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 69 radical reform are the outcome of the feeling that has impelled the movement. Their object is to obtain greater respect of individual rights than exist, and it is highly praiseworthy. The parties promoting it have much good ground for stating that the existing laws work unjustly, and that therefore a change is wanted, and there can be little objection to their statement so far ; but it is on a new principle that they make their assertion, and it is upon that we must disagree, the new principle being more or less community of property, which they would substitute for that of individual property. The principle of that proposed new order of things is founded upon the rights created by the wants of mankind, which are absolute, and supposed to be equal among its members. But beyond the plea that might be put in for a state of community that the state would be a check, at all events, upon scandalous misappropriation by certain individuals under the present rule, we can see no reasonable grounds for advocating it. The principle itself of community of property has no foundation. The wants of man give him a great and absolute claim upon Government as regards the spontaneous powers of nature and the facilities he requires for obtaining a livelihood by his work, 170 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND and these should have Government's chief attention. But they confer on man no property in any sub- stance, either collectively or individually, except on the condition that his labour is used upon it in sup- plying those wants, or that he has procured the substance by purchase, gift, or descent on death. The principle of community of property would allow appropriation in defiance of this reasoning, and thereby is proved its error. And we see that, like all errors, it proves its nature further in its results ; for its efforts would be to unduly limit the field of action of the able, and shift the property created by his efforts to the weak, who had done nothing for it, which would be in itself irrational and utterly inconsistent with the law of property. And it is contrary also to the nature of man that the strong should submit tamely to such an unreasonable state of things. And this we may presume is the cause why we do not hear of any community being actually formed by compulsory mediation of Government, as proposed in the schemes alluded to. The spirit of association so rife among us, leading to vast combinations in which its members, after putting their efforts and labour together for a com- mercial purpose, divide rateably the profits, proves IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 171 not only a natural tendency among men to commu- nity association, but that it has also brought forth marvellously beneficial results, which promise to be greater still on development, and speak well of the system. That must be admitted, but it must be pointed out at the same time that we have proof in such associations that they are simply social, there- fore not political, and that their rules give freedom to people to join in them or not, thus leaving inviolate the individual rights of liberty and property ; while the communistic combination of government, by being compulsory, would make men all slaves, and there would inevitably ensue an unjust appropriation through it, as already stated, to many not earning it. There can be no doubt that horrors have been inflicted upon mankind under our present system, which is said to repose on the principle of indi- vidual property, and the prominent vice of the system has been specially exposed in these pages, as consisting in a monopoly of property through which the general wants of mankind constituting an absolute right to the attention of government have been, and are, positively ignored ; but these facts, however much we may deplore them, afford no argument against the principle. History 1/2 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND shows that the cause of the wrong is in the principle not being conformed to by the law, and what the people have, therefore, to proceed to is to elect those who are qualified and willing to devise the means for making the law thus conform, by defining what is actual property and effectually protecting the same, by exposing that which is not property, but passes by its name, and by asserting what are common rights and providing for them, especially in promoting general distribution of supplies and emigration, so as to afford the means for labour, which it should be their chief duty to endeavour to procure in a manner that would not interfere with general rights, as will be hereafter explained ; and on the change being effected, there can be no doubt that the general productive- ness of nature and man's labour would exceed all possible conception, that it would afford ample means for giving the aid to the helpless which religion prescribes, and leave far behind in its results that of any system of government community. Let us now pass on to a review of the actual schemes of community of property which have been propounded. They come generally under the denomination of socialism, and John Stuart Mill, in his book on Political Economy, devotes to this a IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 73 few pages well worth consideration. By his account, the primitive schemes of these assailants of the principle of individual property implied absolute equality in the distribution of the physical means of life and enjoyment, according to which not only the instruments of production, the land and capital, are the joint property of the community, but the produce is divided, and the labour is appor- tioned as far as possible equally. This doctrine forms the extreme limit of what is called socialism. It has been pointed out that special administra- tive bodies would be required for carrying out such schemes, and that the subjection that would ensue for the masses, would be intolerable ; but, on the other hand, it has been clearly proved that what- ever might be the hardship, its intensity on the whole would not be equal to that which is suffered by the lower classes, who form the bulk of our popula- tion under the present system. A certain advan- tage might, therefore, be admitted in the proposed schemes were it not proved against them that they are perfectly impracticable, and that reforms are quite possible in the existing systems under the prin- ciple of individual property, which would work natu- rally, and lead to a general improved state of things far less susceptible of being questioned on its rules 174 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND and results. But besides the proof of the impracti- cability of these schemes, which we have from the fact that they exist only in a few minds in a state of theory, and from reasoning which demonstrates the principle of community of property they rest upon to be an error, we have also the conclusive experience against them that the chances of reali- zation of any socialistic theory have invariably increased only in the degree in which they show the principle of community of property to have been abandoned, and it proposes a system of organization of free labour in lieu of the compulsory one which a political community system must necessarily embody ; for we see that these primitive schemes, which have become almost defunct, have had to make way for others, admitting a certain degree of inequality, but grounded on supposed principles of justice or general expediency, and not like so many of the existing social inequalities dependent on accident alone ; and from these again have risen schemes which we may call actually non-commu- nistic socialism, inasmuch as they do not necessarily imply entire abolition of individual property, but only that the land and instruments of production should be the property, not of individuals, but of communities or associations of the Government. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 75 These latter schemes have been spreading widely, propounded in one form by St. Simon, which has become extinct, and in a later form by Fourrier. There is evidence in their success, that they only obtained increased favour by the practical abandon- ment they presented of the principle of community of produce, and the remaining difficulty lies only in the extent to which that principle is adhered to in connection with the land and instruments of production. The prevalent disregard by Govern- ment of the wants of mankind, and the statement undoubtedly true that those wants constitute a right, connected with the fact that socialistic theories for meeting them are becoming more practicable every day, are encouraging their pro- moters ; but, in our opinion, the schemes are all founded more or less upon a fundamental error in their electing the principle of community of property in any degree. The agency on which the socialists generally of the present day place by far the greatest reliance is the scheme which is known as the nationalization of the land and of the other instru- ments of production by State appropriation, and in that they only follow up the socialists' principles of community to which we have just alluded, but 176 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND in their plan of working the same considerable improvement is evident. Instead of proposing that labour be directed and division of property- be made compulsory by elected dispensers of distributive justice among meiribers of the com- munity, they would have organization of under- takings and works carried on by State aid from funds supplied by Government, the erection of improved dwellings for the poor either from im- perial or local taxation, and advances from the same sources to parties engaged in agricultural pursuits, the latter to be repaid by the borrowers ; and they would have also a tax levied upon employers of the working classes, for the purpose of providing their workmen assurance against accidents and an allowance during sickness. The late Mr. Fawcett, in a short pamphlet, gives a description of this scheme, which he calls State socialism, to whch he objects generally. There is an evident error in principle in any provision for State aid to supply individuals with work. For such a provision can only be carried out by trans- ferring property from those among the community who have earned it, to the parties who have earned nothing, and this is the main intention of every community scheme. The fact is clear, that when IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 177 members of society have the opportunities of work- ing, which a proper system of distribution would afford, they can provide more than enough for their wants ; and, therefore, when they cannot even procure a sufficiency, it must be that the means for employing themselves are not properly distributed. There is no right to supplement the taxes on account of that defect ; and taxes should be confined to public purposes which can only be met by collective exertions, such as the national defences and national administration. Therefore, what is wanted is simply to perfect distribution. But meanwhile will it be said what is to be done ? It would certainly not be advisable to utterly condemn the provision suggested, but yet it must be allowed that there would not be the same grounds for its adoption as in the poor rates ; and evidently it should be brought into operation only on emergencies by way of expediency, when every other measure encouraging self-help and co-operation fails, and on the understanding that the aid can only be temporary. For taxes levied in order to carry on works and provide advances to people in trade, as well as public charges upon employers for providing their workmen assurance, must all, if unproductive, be to the loss of the N 1/8 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND community; and it is in that manner that the principle upon which they would rest proves itself to be of the same communistic nature as the general principles of nationalization or common property of the land, though apparently not so rank in their communism. Like all communistic organizations, this scheme of Government aid and that of the nationalization of land property are a simple reaction against con- centration, by the operation of which all material for labour is monopolized, and the State aid consti- tutes what is believed would be the remedy for an abatement of that evil. But in reality it would only be the substitution of one great evil for another, inasmuch as the proposed remedy is not intended to be procured by a tax to be levied solely upon the authors of the evil, as it should in justice be, but upon the faultless community, who already suffer so much by the concentration, and whose condition would be further aggravated by the tax ; and this feature of the apparent in- creased practicability of communistic schemes by means of taxation, which their promoters propose, is becoming a great and insidious danger to society. At the risk of repeating ourselves in some respects, we will give here a full explanation of our IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 79 views in opposition to communistic claims gene- rally. We have already shown that the land and its spontaneous produce and powers are no one's pro- perty, yet from evidence of a design of Providence they are clearly intended for every one. Therefore, belonging to no one, but intended for the generality, the first consequence must be at the formation of society that they come necessarily and in justice under the care of society, who would have to dispose of them in the best way possible, in view, of the wants for which they are designed, and the wants of mankind would constitute a natural common right in regard to them, but the right could carry no absolute right of property with it to any land where there is no opportunity of labour on it, It is labour only by means of which the light of man's intelligence and the forces within him are embodied in an object that creates for him pro- perty therein, and it is only by the power of his will that the property can rightly be transferred from him. It is evident, moreover, that Government cannot ensure land to every one coming into this world, and that it can only arrange for its distri- bution in the fairest way possible; and there are numberless ways of living, and sorts of property created, by labour otherwise than in land which l80 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND Government in any case should place as nearly as possible in rieach of people, in order to give them the desired opportunity of work. It would, there- fore, only be according to the exercise of these opportunities of work that property could be created ; and while the common right is a natural one, the right of property must be acquired, and it is for that reason that it can only reside in the individual in certain cases creating it, whether it be land or anything else, subject to the general common rights, and it can only become common by agreement. It is urged that the right in man to work is a rational consequence of his right to subsistence, which latter we will presume to be a real one, though it may not be universally acknowledged ; for, say the parties to this assertion of right to work, there is no subsistence obtainable without work, therefore the right to it carries a right to that necessary means of procuring it. There appears to be an utter error in such a conclusion. And now let us for a moment con- sider what the alleged right of labour can signify. It is evident, without any deep reflection, that the right here claimed is, in the strict sense of the word, only a right of exercise of the human forces IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. l8l which, although there is no mention of any object to which they should be applied, must have one, if they are to be used ; and it is evident that the object must be in tools, workshop, and materials, which the party coming forward with such a claim clearly demands from others. Now, consider, also, what these implements, erections, and materials belonging to others, must consist of They can only be material in the manufactured state ; that is to say, part of capital stock, or else the raw material in the land. The material in the first-named state, we have seen, contains an embodiment of forces of labour justly entitling the person who applied them to the material to appropriate it, subject to all prior rights ; the raw material is in the land, which in this country is all, or nearly all, appro- priated ; and the great bulk of the manufactured material is in the hands of parties who had a very restricted amount of material to begin with ; therefore, the claim to labour can only be realized by drawing upon the resources of the two classes, the one holding the land, or the other holding the produce of his labour. We have seen already that there is no right on the part of those who have earned nothing to appropriate those embodi- ments of labour of others. In fact, the man in 1 82 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND possession simply of produce obtained by his work might speak to those coming to him, either for subsistence or work, as follows : — " I never trenched upon any one for subsistence ; I am, therefore, strictly speaking, not liable to supply such to any one. But the condition of those in want grieves me, and for that reason I feel impelled to assist them ; at the same time I consider them in my debt for what I contribute, and that their claim, if any, can only be upon others holding lands wrongly appropriated. But as regards the claim to labour, I can see no founda- tion whatever in it upon any one ; it can only exist" as regards unappropriated lands, out of which the man allowed to work upon them would have to make his own capital and tools. It speaks for itself, that a charge upon the community for tools, erections, and material to work with, for those in want of subsistence, would amount to much more than the cost of subsistence itself, which is all that can be claimed in reason ; and that to drain the workman or capitalist of the produce he has earned, to make up the excess required by others to enable them to work, is an unjust demand upon his resources. In most cases, such a transfer from the one to the other for purposes of work would IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 83 be positively an encroachment upon the necessaries of life of the party taxed, a species of cannibalism, a mode of drawing blood from the body of one to sustain the life of another." The writer saw the application of the principle, " Droit au travail " in France, under the Provisional Government, after the Revolution of 1 848. Reason- ing without applying their understanding to fully master the subject, they not only declared the principle by public decree, but proceeded in the same manner to guarantee the work out of national advances. The error was shortly proved in the carrying-out of the undertaking. A loss ensued, which fell upon the shoulders of those who were compelled through taxation to find the necessary funds, and later on, by reason of this failure, terrible disasters followed. The begin- ning and the end of the once-famous "Ateliers Nationaux," * which were opened in France in 1 848 to give work to those who wanted it, and the necessity of closing them from lack of funds, and the events of the insurrection in 1849 that followed, that are here referred to, must be known by many. * Louis Blanc and his party deny that the "Ateliers Nationaux " were their suggestion. They were, however, the direct effect of the decrees which were his drafting. See their scheme of State sub- vention and legislation for all trades in his " Revolution of 1848." 1 84 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND These arguments, as well as the events men- tioned, seem to be conclusive against the claim to community of property generally by natural right ; and there is the argument against it also, that lands assumed by law to be owned as common, being every one's lands yet no one's, have never proved productive, and that lands retained and administered in the name of the community as Crown lands by the State have been equally un- productive, and there has never appeared a chance of the soil being made thoroughly fruitful, unless it was in the hands of those who would work it as part of their individual property, which is the first instinct of nature, the strongest incentive of exertion, and the best basis of productiveness. Systems of entire reconstruction of government embody, almost without exception, new principles of property, subversive of those on which society has rested from its beginning, and upon which its Governments have been formed, and it is in their attempts at such social reform, that their weakness has so signally exhibited itself. They cannot hold their ground, except by a vast amount of construc- tion in their rules, which are distasteful to human nature ; and there is a great preponderance of enlightened opinion against them; while, on the IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 185 other hand, the existing principle of individual property is adhered to by an immense majority, and is scarcely questioned by the well-informed ; and the only real point with the public accepting it is whether the laws are conformable to it or not, and in this will be explained the comparative simplicity of the task upon us for reconstruction. As part of the general public concurring in the main principle of individual property, we have only to clear up its meaning, and see that the law supposed in government to flow from it really complies with it. It is government that would have to initiate the steps for making the principle comply, and the term reconstruction would scarcely in any degree come under such a duty. This simplicity may be held to be further proof of the soundness of the basis of our reasoning. Although the origin of our institutions may not be as generally accepted in principle as the principle of individual property, there can be no doubt that it is very widely adopted as consisting in an act of supremacy of the people ; and it is a maxim which seems to animate nearly all in these days, both those who govern and those who are governed, that we are all beholden to society, whatever course it may take ; therefore, 1 86 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND as the two principles of individual property and popular sovereignty are the accepted basis of society, it becomes more than ever proved that there can be little question of reconstruction in the changes that may be necessary, and no more can be required than a removal of the superin- cumbent burdensome laws affecting property, and with that the subjection of all classes to the sovereignty of society, in order that society should work according to the principles upon which it exists. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 8/ CHAPTER XV. The land viewed in connection with the burthens and public services which should be met out of its produce. Having shown in what respect the present political institutions of this country are in oppo- sition to the principle upon which they should rest, there remains for us yet to consider the rights of property as established by law, in order to judge to what extent the laws, as existing in this matter, comply with the principle which should form their basis. This will involve a further short investiga- tion, from which can alone be concluded the proper grounds for general taxation, and it is only in regard to taxation that the observations we may have to make can be taken as proposing distinctly any degree of reconstruction in government. It is evident that the principle of individual property is conformed to in our society uniformly from the fact that property is held individually, but there is the further patent fact that it is not held 188 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND as uniformly by natural right. Although personal property may have been originally appropriated unjustly in many cases, the law of its descent on intestacy, which has caused its wide distribution, has made it become right in almost all in the end by the labour which each, according as a share fell to him, must have imparted to it for its main- tenance ; but it has not been the same with real property, or the land. We have seen that the land was, for the most part, seized with violence by the few in the first instance, and instead of labour being imparted to it by descent, which would have been the natural effect of its distribution, and would have caused it to become really property in the hands of its holders, it has been systematically tied up in the hands of the descendants of those few in a manner to enable them to dispense with applying their labour to it at all, and they have not worked it. Thus, we have evident proof, as property is allowed in such land to the holders, that the law that sanctions this is not in conformity with the natural principle upon which property rests. Let us now bring our attention specially to bear upon the question of actual property, as it is sanc- tioned in the land, and compare it with the natural right in it, which can only be by labour thereon IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 1 89 bestowed in the first instance. Let us also look into the circumstances that may be alleged as an excuse for this sanction of the right which overrides the right of nature, for it is clear that a system of taxation, which it is admitted should be framed according to the property of each, can only be fairly framed by considering the relation of each to the property he holds ; that is to say, whether it is held by an absolute right, or by robbery unmiti- gated in its continuance, or by some conventional right, or by none, and whether that conventional right would be by agreement in adjustment of real rights, or simply by treaty between the strong and the weak, in which the latter would have no alternative but to submit — in fact, whether the land is held or not by political right in the true sense in which it should have been laid down, and if it is so held, to what extent. It follows evidently from our former statements that there can be no natural right of property by possession simply, still less by declaration of possession. But it is here we must admit that the realization of the true right of property, by labour or bequest, and of the common rights in the agencies of the land, or in anything, would be impossible in a state of nature ; for those rights 190 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND would be constantly defeated by parties who would have it in their power to violate them. It has been, therefore, invariably necessary to make an appropriation of the soil in the best way possible in the first instance, in order that those rights might be realized thereafter, and society, acting by convention, has been allowed to be the adjudi- cator in such matters. Society cannot with impunity go against the justice and truth of the propositions on which rest the rights of property. It is clear, on the other hand, that it would not be practicable for it to provide for every one a share of the land ; the soil can only, therefore, be distributed on rules approaching as nearly as possible to justice, which would be to allow in his possession, the first occupier who held, no more than he could work, and who had already made the soil his property by work, subject to his paying to the State, not, as at present, a small tax, but a proper rent-charge in considera- tion of the share of nature in obtaining all produce from it. There can be no doubt that society in no case ever commenced under such pure rules of justice, but its object should be, after its formation, to bring these into operation by all possible means. Now, let us consider what has been done. By IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. I91 the operation of the laws, especially those affecting the descent of land, we have already seen that the greater part of our estates have descended to the hands of their owners in such vast quantities that it is impossible that either the present holders or their predecessors should have ever bestowed the labour upon it which would be the only true sign of its being their property. Their claim to the land rests on nothing but possession, and in many cases on mere declaration of possession. About four-sevenths of the land are held in this manner on no other than possessory title ; and it is need- less, after what we have already said, for us to refer more to this condition of things in order to prove that the continuance of such a state, though it may be sanctioned by law, is neither consonant to right of any sort nor to the objects of society. It may, however, be argued, from our admission — that actual appropriation of the land can exist only by convention of society — that the possessory title, having been accepted in this case by society in the first instance, and ever allowed afterwards, has thus become a valid one, for the reason that, however little there may be of abstract right in the title, its right may have been created by law of society, from just motives for ensuring peace 192 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND and encouraging industry ; and, moreover, that laws in force must in all cases be assumed as long as they last to represent conditions imposed by its convention, and, in absence of laws, the government or king in power must be assumed to represent society in the rules they make ; and it may be added that it was through such sanction that these large occupancies of land were allowed in the first instance, and that they afterwards be- came the freehold we see. There is force in the argument. It may be allowed also, that the submission shown to this state of things may be construed as positive proof of a popular conven- tion in the matter ; but it may be urged, on the other hand, by those who have been the victims through successive generations of the state of things, that it is not the result of a free conven- tion, but an effect of forcible submission on the part of the weak to the strong ; that the preroga- tives under which it was continued were not for the good of the subject, and that submission to them could not be construed into acquiescence ; that prerogatives, forcibly obtained, have been constantly objected to, and few others remain ; and that nearly the entire appropriation of the land was a deed of usurpation of public rights, in a IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 193 class interest facilitated by the extraordinary- power they held, and justly liable to be cancelled by reforms, annulling the title, and carrying con- fiscation of the estates claimed under them. There may be no denying the facts stated, but the conclusion justifying confiscation would be utterly false. In no case would it be competent for a govern- ment, or desirable for society, to introduce laws which would have, for effect, to do away with estates or property sanctioned under, what must be assumed to be, their former acts. All confidence in the legislature would be lost, if such could become the practice. We must, therefore, simply accept the gross inequalities which are the ill effects of past legislation, and try, as regards the future, to stop their progress in such a manner that, by just and natural means, they, in course of time, may dis- appear. We have seen already that this may be to a great degree accomplished by a repeal of the old laws which have caused concentration ; and there can be no doubt, on consideration of the nature of the title of the large holders, both to their holding and the income they appropriate from it, there would be grounds for alteration in the present mode of taxation that would- help to o 194 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND accomplish that end. It is evident that the title of the large holders has been, and continues only, from conventional right, which is not of the highest character, and that this fact would particularly deserve notice when the country comes to the subject of taxing them as regards their estates. Although the effect of successive Acts of Parlia- ment and of custom has been to make estates virtually allodial, it is satisfactory to be able to state that the main principle of the law of the the land is in direct opposition to their being of that character ; that is to say, the absolute property of the holder. " It is a fundamental rule, appli- cable to the whole kingdom, that all lands were originally derived from the Crown; therefore, no man is in law the absolute owner of lands. He can only hold an estate in them, and, though a freeholder, he is free only as regards his right to alienate his tenure ; and he is really in the position of a tenant for ever at the nominal rent of allegi- ance to the Crown ; and the constitutional power still exists to alter or vary that tenure, or to impose something more than a nominal rent. For the only bar of Crown claims upon freeholders for rent, in lieu of ancient custom, is the Act 12 Car. II., c. 24, which, like any other Act, may be re- IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 195 pealed by an authority of equal power, to wit, the Imperial Parliament" (Beeton, "On the Laws relating to Property "). And there seems to be no alternative but to retrace the steps taken by that Act, and to reimpose in a new form, say of " rent- charge," the obligations that have been done away with. 196 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND CHAPTER XVI. Proposed new basis of general taxation. The next question to inquire into will be the proper distribution of taxes, and in this we should seek not only a fair mode of apportioning the burthens which must fall upon society, but a way of restoring to the people that which is being abstracted from them and included with rent ; for it is evident that this can only be effected by deductions from sums received in that way, and there would also have to be considered the taxes required by way of check on undue accumulation of wealth from other sources than the land. It has been laid down by Adam Smith that political economy, as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects : firstly, to enable the people to provide a plentiful subsistence for themselves ; and, secondly, to supply the commonwealth with a revenue , sufficient for the public services. Labour being IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. I97 indispensable for procuring the subsistence, Adam Smith made its proper organization for that purpose his special study, and he succeeded in showing that the greater the plenty will be accord- ing to the degree in which labour is directed to productive pursuits, and according as it is divided and freely exercised ; and no doubt these rules are good for obtaining the greatest abundance possible under any existing political system, but, as we have seen already, they contain no reference to the object which should be the main one in political economy ; that is to say, the proper mode of creating that plenty in the first instance, and distributing it when it is obtained, for really effecting its real end, the well-being of the people. The second object that political economy pro- poses, which is to supply the commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public service, embraces the whole question of what is the proper and just mode of taxing the members for that purpose, and this is the subject which we have now particularly to touch upon. The principle by which taxation should be guided is, in a certain way, the same as that which rules property. The tax should be dis- tributed, and it is generally accepted that the 198 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND burthen should be divided among the members of society according to their means, which would be represented by their estate and revenue, and that it should be imposed in further marked pro- portion according as those means have been earned by their possessor or not — that is to say, the un- earned means should be the most heavily taxed. Taxes might be both direct and indirect, or, in other words, they might be levied on income from the profits of the individual, or on objects which he purchases ; the one mode would reach him through his income by diminishing it, the other, through his expenditure by adding to it, and both modes would be legitimate. But before all, it is important to note that whatever mode may be adopted, it is expedient to arrange it so that it should have as little as possible the effect of crippling trade or checking productiveness, and it should be varied according to the circumstances under which the income is obtained and the expenditure is incurred ; that is to say, it should differ according as the income is derived from labour or from invested funds, and according as the subject of expenditure is necessary and general or not — according, in fact, generally to the relation of the subject to his possessions. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 199 Before, however, we inquire into the best way of imposing taxes, we must go back to the considera- tion of the rent-charge that would be properly- payable to Government in respect of the land by its owners, and which should be a matter outside of all taxation, appearing under a heading totally different from that of tax. As nearly all are aware, there is certainly a land tax imposed, which forms part of the fiscal system of the country ; and under Schedule A of the income tax, the gross rent from land is in addition assessed to the income tax as salaries and profits, making all produce of the land appear, whether obtained by the agencies of nature or of man, in the light of income absolutely procured by some personal right or other, which we know and have proved suflficiently to be contrary to fact. This anomaly claims our special attention before we can proceed further upon the question of " Rent-charge." Let us now look at the two taxes in existence, called land tax and income tax (Schedule A). Although by labour an estate may be created in the soil, and the soil may be justly apportioned by the State to the parties who, by their labour, created it, and there may have been reasons in the 200 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND interests of peace to confirm even the holding of the soil to those simply in possession, without questioning their right of occupancy or property in it, we have it in proof that this was done, subject to rights reserved by the nation, or its representa- tives, in consideration of the spontaneous agencies residing in the soil, which constitute a common right. This common right was exercised by the imposition of services and burthens in ancient times on the same owners of the soil, and it would be an utterly illogical and indefensible act to alienate those rights, as both the human wants which created them and the supernatural agency intended to satisfy these wants are of an ever-, lasting nature, and their inalienability in principle is, even to this day, , acknowledged by the fact that burthens, in some shape or other, are dis- tinctly cast upon the owners of the land in respect of the land. Now, what we have to observe is that this principle of inalienability was practically evaded by the nature and amount of the two taxes, land tax and income tax (Schedule A), when they were substituted for the ancient burthens, and this fact makes it incumbent upon us to look back into the character of the ancient burthens and of IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 201. the present taxes upon the land respectively, and compare them. The ancient burthens did not affect any pro- duce created by the owners, and in meeting them the owners acknowledged virtually that a propor- , tion of the produce was by right the property of the nation. The principle was absolutely correct and complied with, and, by dictate of reason, the proportion set aside corresponded with the owners' natural obligations. Besides providing, in the first, instance, the State with armies, it met many other important requirements, and there could be no objection to it, except in the form in which the provision was made, and which had to be varied, according to the circumstances of the times. But, as stated before, the pressure from the burthens was considerably lessened by degrees through those changes, until at last they became absolutely abolished by , the Act of, Charles II., and the deficiency caused thereby in the national resources for public . services was met by excise duties enforced upon the nation at large, as some say before, and others say after, the abolition of the burthens, the date of enforcement being immaterial to our purpose. But these new duties proved insufficient for the general requirements, and it 2b2 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND was thus after a while, in 1692, when the deficiency was fully apparent, that there was imposed the present land tax. At the time, the acceptance of the land tax was a somewhat revived acknowledgment of the ancient obligations, but it subsists now scarcely more than in name. It was introduced expressly into the fiscal system of the country in lieu of the ancient subsidies, and established as a regular source of revenue by an Act of Parliament. By it a duty of 4s. in the £ was charged on salaries and profitable employments, and on the full yearly value of land at the time upon the basis of a rack-rent valuation, which would necessarily rise with every increase of rent. Various rates have been charged, but the valuation on which the land tax was made remained the same, and at last a bill, in 1798, fixed the rate at 4s. in the £ on the old valuation, giving power to redeem the tax. ;£'8oo,ooo have been cleared off by the process of this redemption, and the tax returns now no more than ;£' 1,100,000, whereas it is estimated that its yield at the rate named on a correct valuation should be ;£' 17,000,000. Of course, while such a serious diminution was taking place in the contribution of the landowners. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 203 the national wants had to be met by other means in cases of great emergency, and it was under these circumstances that all rents in the gross were assessed to the income tax under Schedule A some time later, in the same way as if they repre- sented ordinary income. This came to pass at the end of the last century, and the general effect of these changes was practically a sale or alienation by Government of the common right in the land represented by the old burthens, in allowing the redemption, and a reduction in the burthens on landowners generally, in assessing their rents to income tax under Schedule A, which had the effect of shifting the charges they should properly bear on to the shoulders of others who were not liable, and the effectual diminution of the landlords' payments for dues to what it now stands at. The income tax was imposed generally for the first time at the end of the last century, and, in its application to the landowners, bears the most flagrant character of being imposed to relieve them from the special obligations which attach to their occupancy of land and its marvellous agencies. It was stated to be simply a war tax, and was dropped in 181 5 ; but it was reimposed in 1842, and is still in force, permanently keeping down the landlords' 204 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND payment as regards their national obligations. Both land tax and income tax in their case are an irrational unjust substitution for the more heavy dues they are in justice bound by. We are authorized by the circumstances stated: to look to the restoration of the ancient land obligation, and to assess to taxation only that from the land which should legitimately be subject to it ; that is to say, the profits derived from indi- vidual labour, and from capital invested in its improvements. The change could be accomplished by allowing to appear under Schedule A of the income tax, only a sum representing a fair interest on the capital invested in improvements of the land, and by the establishment besides of a national fund under a heading to be called "State Rent- charge,", into which would be paid the sums ruled to be, set apart by the owners of the land out of its produce , as representing the propor- tion of the produce which might be claimed by common right, as the pure result of the exercise of the natural agency, and doing away altogether with the present land tax. And here we have before us a question not only of repealing a certain existing tax, the land tax, but of effecting IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 20S a substitution for same, which must involve some degree of reconstruction of existing Government measures. The productiveness of the land appears to form the best basis for arriving at the rent- charge to be set apart annually from its produce, and which would be applied to the public services in relief or substitution of existing taxes. This would necessitate a valuation, setting out at the same time the annual productiveness of every holding, and any outlay that had been expended upon the land by way of capital charge for improving it by the owner ; and the valuation should be correct, or it would be of no use for its purpose. All philosophers of note have agreed that a tax on land value, or, to speak more clearly, on produce or rent, is the best method of raising public revenue. J. J. Rousseau : " L'imp6t le meilleur k mon avis le plus naturel et qui n'est point sujet a la fraude est une taxe proportionelle sur les terres, et sur toutes les terres sans exception ; car enfin c'est ce qui produit qui doit payer." John Stuart Mill : " The existing land tax ought not to be regarded as a tax, but as a rent-charge in favour of the pubhc; a portion of the rent 2o6 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND reserved from the beginning by the State, which has never belonged to or formed part of the income of the landlords, and it should therefore not be counted to them as part of their taxation, so as to exempt them from their fair share of every other tax." Ricardo : " A tax on rent would fall wholly on landlords, and could not be shifted to any class of consumers. It would not discourage the cultiva- tion of fresh land." Adam Smith : " A land tax never can discourage improvements nor keep down the produce of land to what it would otherwise rise to. As it has no tendency to diminish the quantity, it can have none to raise the price of that produce. It does not abstract the industry of the people, and subjects the landlords to no other inconvenience besides the unavoidable one of paying the tax." It is proper to state here that a tax on interest Dn capital cannot either affect capital or its pro- iuctiveness. And the inconvenience of that tax :o the capitalist, would be the same as that of the and tax to the landowner, only in the curtail- Tient of his superfluity. This is a strict conclusion "rom the proofs we have given that the landowner ind the capitalist are distinctly subjects apart IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 207 from their land and capital, and that it is absurd to say that anything affecting them, to the diminu- tion of their profits, must be an injury at all to either land or capital. Statistics of productiveness and calculations of the cost borne by the owners in assisting that productiveness should be comparatively easy to get up. The effects of capital improvements by the hand of man, as well as the improvements them- selves, are evidently perishable, and may, in many instances, have died out. Still, any effect remaining from them should be allowed. Although the works may have been most ancient, and their primitive owners may have passed away centuries ago, there can be no doubt, therefore, that the first operation would be to ascertain that outlay in order to fix a fair rate for arriving at the amount which should be assessed to the income tax respecting it. This amount would represent the profit purely obtained by the owner's means or efforts through his capital or labour, and it would have to be first deducted from the ascertained total pro- ductiveness. The balance of the total productiveness, after the deduction is made, would represent the result of the combination of the two agencies, viz. the 208 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND agency of nature and of man's labour in bringing forth the produce. It seems generally agreed that rent of land, or what should be the rent according to its market value, would be the most easily arrived at, and the least liable to error of the several tests of its net productiveness; and, as far as we can judge, it should afford the figures for ascertaining the pro- portion which should be set aside by the owner to meet the rentrcharge, the rent being the amount of the productiveness of the land, after deducting the cost of labour and interest on capital applied to work it. There can be no question as to the apportion- ment of the State rent-charge out of the rent, being a matter lying simply between the landowners and the State after ascertaining the proportion of the rent property assessable to income tax (Schedule A), which should be first deducted from it ; and the question we have, therefore, to put to ourselves is the following : What proportion of the combined energies of the owner, or his predecessors, and of nature in bringing about the net results, which constitute together' this balance of rent, should be reserved by the owner as his share, and what pro- portion should be paid to the State as theirs } The IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 209 proportion payable to the State was fixed in the land tax of 1692 at one-fifth of the rent, which left to the owner the four-fifths of it. The estimated contribution of the feudal times was more than one-half of the total produce, a still higher impost than the said tax ; and in looking at the case, it occurs to one at once that the real difficulty in endeavouring to justify it would be in showing how the proportion payable to the State should have been no more ; for, considering the enormous quantity of the spontaneous production of the earth, the rate at which the seed which forms an essential part of it will multiply, and the accele- rated rate of its multiplication as time speeds, all without the act of man, and that the labour of the landlord in utilizing the net produce generally would be scarcely more than the gathering of it in the shape of rent, it is evident that the owner's contribution towards the total results of the com- bination of his powers and those of nature must have been comparatively insignificant. There can, therefore, be no doubt that a rent- charge at one-fifth of the rent payable to the State, leaving the four-fifths to the owners to retain, cannot be termed unjust. But though it might be in accordance with justice to make it higher 2IO ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND against them, we need not go into the question what that higher proportion might be ; it will be sufficient for the purposes of this exposition to show the deductions that have been actually made by the State from land produce, the principle upon which they were effected, and the lengthened period during which they were enforced. These facts give the grounds for proposing their restoration ; therefore, what we have to suggest is simply that, after subtracting from the amount of the rent an allowance of interest for the owner's outlay of capital in improvements on the land, their contribution, by way of rent-charge to the State, should be, at least, one-fifth of the balance. From the fact that the land burthens are remarkably less than they were at the time of the Act, 1692, and that by that and subsequent Acts considerable diminution had thereby been made in them as compared with what they amounted to in the feudal days, there would, or ought to be, naturally implied diminution of obli- gation on the part of the landowner, owing to diminution of advantages in possession of the land, irrespective of the rent. But let us see if that can be so. The general wealth has been steadily increasing IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 211 since the feudal times. Gradually, as society was getting larger, fresh powers for providing for its wants developed by the instinct of association. Through this circumstance the necessity of ex- changing produce became felt, and those possessed of objects in excess of their requirements would barter these for things of which others would also have a surplus, and the transaction would lead to additional consumption, and the rate of its increase would keep developing as the facilities of exchange and production were afforded. On the other hand, the produce of labour would grow as the demand for it arose, which demand would be promoted by the consumption, and labour in the end had to be organized to meet it. By organization of labour and exchange a new energy was imparted to the productive element in man, which would keep pace with the growth of the population, in the first instance. But these are only a few of the natural effects of the develop- ment of a state of society. Far more potent effects of it are to be seen in the improvement of the human mind from the opportunity of intercourse which it gives. By its inspiration, as population further augmented, increased facilities of exchange were created in the adoption of an improved 212 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND medium for it, and the operations of labour be- came more fruitful by its division and organiza- tion into vast joint undertakings. With this state of things we have seen that the artisan and the mechanic, grown out of the villein, at one time procured the raw supplies necessary for their sustenance, of which their lords possessed a sur- plus, by contributing through their trade, calling, or profession, to the pleasure, comfort, and luxury of the latter. What the emancipated class obtained in this manner beyond that which was necessary for their sustenance, constituted, in course of time, a new sort of wealth we have read of as developing among them by the side of the vast production belonging to the lords. This wealth became the foundation of cities, corporations, and guilds, and by the same intellectual inspiration society has been adding daily to its fund of new resources, and it has been successfully inventing machinery to supplement its physical forces, and discovering fresh latent powers too numerous to state, for the same purpose towards its wants and other objects of pursuit. We cannot doubt but that the introduction from time to time of these new combinations and energy, as population kept augmenting, must have caused IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 213 produce to increase at a ratio far exceeding that of the population, and it must have evidently done so, and this purely by the industry of the people. But what conclusion can we arrive at, except that this growth of wealth, which was in luxuries as well as necessaries, cannot have affected the well-being of the landowning class improvements, and that, on the contrary, it must have been highly advantageous to them .' For in the imperfect state of trade and the arts of former times, what the lord could not consume, he had to divide with dependents ; but, through the improvement of arts and the develop- ment of trade, his surplus became quickly more available to him to procure a variety of supplies for the purpose of self-gratification, which he could not get before, and the landowners are therefore, up to the present day, really the greatest gainers by the general accession to this new wealth. But there remains the fact that, in the midst of their opulence, the numbers of those permanently in want, or suffering privation in occasional crises, cannot be less in proportion to population than it was, but apparently more ; therefore, the position of the owners of the land being better than formerly, their obligations, instead of diminishing, must have become greater. 214 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND As regards taxes of an indirect nature, we will speak of these later. But meanwhile, as to those of a direct character which would affect income, it appears only just that the income they relate to should be classified (in a very different manner from the mode now adopted) for arriving at a just assessment. Income from investments should be classed distinctly apart from income made up of wages, salaries, and earnings by professional exer- tions and exertions in trade ; these latter should be fixed on the lowest scale possible, without graduation, and in all the cases where it can be imposed at all, it should leave enough income to the owner to subsist moderately by, and it should be for all of that class alike, for it must be considered as equally earned by its members in its large amounts as in its small. The tax on income from investments, whether in securities or trade, should be a higher one. This class of income corresponds generally with interest, and evidently represents means of a character that should be taxed ; but they are also evidently not earned by labour, but come to the recipient by the exertions of others, and that is what constitutes its distinctness. There does not appear to be any reason, either, for making IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 21 5 this tax a graduated one. It should be simply generally higher alike for all interests of the same sort, provided enough is left to those coming under the tax to subsist by, as in the case of the tax on professional earnings and wages and labour in trade. We come next to the proper taxation in con- nection with the land, on which we have already touched in suggesting that, firstly, a rent-charge should be substituted for the present land tax, to be ascertained in a manner already described ; secondly, that any income tax upon the land should be charged under Schedule A in respect of income ascertained to result from capital outlay on im- provements in it, and it should be at the same rate as the tax upon income from investments for any one receiving rent from property that can be adjudged as having been earned. But in respect of estates, which by their size give evidence that the property can never have been acquired or procured by labour or reasonable grant, we should say that for a certain portion of such estates, exceeding a certain acreage to be stated, the income tax (Schedule A) and the rent charge should be also considerably higher ; and the same high tax should apply to all estates held by corporate bodies. There should be, also, Zl6 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND no partiality shown to the landed interest under the incidence of the death duties. The effect of this arrangement would be to take out of the assessment to income tax, under Schedule A, the amounts now included therein for supposed income from rent of land, and to enter under the schedule only the profits derived from improvement of the land by outlay or special labour, and to open a public account under a new heading, say " State Rent-charge," to which the value of the produce from the soil determined by the State to be set aside on its collection would be paid. It is impossible here to advise how the amount of the annual produce, which should be the founda- tion for this apportionment, can be worked out, whether by survey, or acceptance of the rent, or by the leases, or otherwise. The great point would be to make an accurate calculation, and that this can be worked out is certain. The final result would be a reduction in the general taxation, viz. that which each should con- tribute out of his earnings towards the public ex- penses, and which very improperly, for the relief of the owners of land, has been levied generally on produce at the stage of its passing through the hands of labour and the channels of trade instead IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 217 of that of its collection, thus impeding those two elements of production. And the taxes on the necessaries of life (which, as proof of their un- reasonableness, have so constantly, as a matter of course, to be recouped to the poor in their wages) would, as a consequence, be the first diminished.* * See Appendix B. 2l8 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND CHAPTER XVII. Progress of society in its intellectual, social, and political relations to the present day — Its tendency to triumph over all attempts at concentration of property and usurpation of the sovereignty which resides only in the people. A GREAT writer* has said of the human lot that there is a broad sameness in it, which never alters in the main heading of its history — hunger and labour, seed-time and harvest, love and death — and we must acknowledge that sameness so far as it appears in the uniformity of existence under the influence of the wants and passions of mankind ; but the term does not apply to the nature and working of the human intellect and will, for in the years that have succeeded each other, development has proved to be the particular attribute of the former, and variety and progress of action have marked the course of both. While the common wants and passions have been ever keeping man * George Eliot. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 219 down on a level with animal creation of a lower order, making his course of life similar in monotony to theirs, his mind, buoyed by higher aspirations, has enabled him to soar above and to be ever vary- ing and extending his operations. As far as we can trace the origin of things, we find man's intellect at first only a httle better than instinct with mere germs of thought. Though conscious of the existence of a first cause, he was so little able to appreciate the fact, that with more dread than love he adored as such the animals of the field and the mere work of his hands in images made of stone or wood. But slowly, by the development of his faculties and will, he studied the elements of the earth ; he discerned their pro- perties and combinations, and learnt to measure its surface and its depths ; and he succeeded even in following the course of the heavenly bodies. At every step a new range of thought became opened to him, and he thereby acquired a gradually improved position in his relations to the rest of creation. Man's first step in knowledge, which Locke tells us is the view the mind has of the agreement or disagreement or repugnancy of any of its ideas, or of the relations they have to one and another, was necessarily limited to a comparison of two ideas 220 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND only in the objects mediate to him, and occurred to him almost spontaneously. But this stage was a short one, and he soon proceeded from the view of two ideas relating to mediate objects to the better discerning of the agreement, disagreement, and relation between divers ideas in relation to objects beyond his reach, which could only be done by the intervention of other ideas, or what is commonly called the process of reasoning; and the con- sequence was an increased intellectual effectiveness for deducing a greater amount of facts of absolute certainty and formulating principles which revealed to him truths or knowledge of a vastly higher order, added to which experience was gradually giving him fresh edd, informing him of many facts and their effects, and by analogy causing him to judge whether like facts would not produce like effects, and thereby placing him in a state next to certainty for his speculation in many things besides ; and by this process, altogether he stored before many centuries, a vast amount of facts use- ful to him in the various arts, trades, and pursuits of life. Our observations at this stage are not made with a view to any metaphysical investigation of the origin of man's ideas ; they are simply put forward IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 221 to record the progress of the human mind, which it is necessary to know for the proper understand- ing of our poHtical and social institutions, as they are intimately connected with that progress. The most marked stage of improvement in man's intellectual condition occurred when the faculty of reasoning came into play. But as that operation could extend only according to knowledge already acquired, and it was essential before all that man should use it first in regard to subjects primarily necessary for his subsistence, this will explain how it is that he turned his attention only tardily to the consideration of the world beyond the narrow one in which he lives, and that he only then began to contemplate the spiritual being within himself and the relations it bears to that outer world. Let us for a moment endeavour to realize man's thoughts on the occasion of his mind thus expanding to take in further knowledge. They would have been the same as in any person of ordinary enlightenment in the present day bring- ing his attention to bear for the first time upon the subject. Let us think of what must occur in him on such an occasion. He sees himself at first with a beginning and an end, and he sees the universe 222 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND without. He is then led to conceive events in rela- tion to both, making up epochs, and he becomes conscious of the existence of substance, power, form, and combinations also in both ; and these results in his mind he naturally presumes to be the reflection of reality, but it brings no absolute cer- tainty, except of his own finite eisistence. Simulta- neously with these thoughts occurs the knowledge that epochs in their longest imaginable periods, that the universe in the immensity of its forms and combinations, his own nature in the midst of all, can be nothing to what lies beyond them. He then knows absolutely that epochs may succeed each other in eternity, the space which encom- passes the heavens is boundless, and force and substance, whence all form is derived, are self- existing, and that these are absolute facts which can hit be, and that they constitute a unity of infiniteness which would be among the necessary conditions of the existence of a supreme being. In his further contemplation he sees eternity, space, self-existing substance, and power as all represent- ing facts of infiniteness to which the objects around him, making up together the variety of the finite, can only be effects in their form and action ; and he is driven, looking at these facts, to accept IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 223 in the finite a dependency of the infinite and in the infinite a distinct cause of all to which that finite dependency, (let us swell our conceptions as we may, and the utmost they will take in is immensity in regard to this finite creation) bears not the shadow of proportion, and to conclude in that cause a God beyond and distinct from everything. The knowledge of this sublime fact, which became general only at a late period of the life of this world, imparted to man a new spiritual gratification in a sense of the existence of an Almighty being, who extends His protection over the universe, and to whom nearly all raise with gratitude their mind and heart. No doubt the knowledge has given an impetus to a vast amount of useless speculation upon the attributes of that being, and upon the spiritual nature of man and his destiny through eternity, all subjects not to be grasped by the simple power of the human intellect, nor even by religion, which can only settle man's belief to a limited extent. But by these intellectual elevations other great discoveries were brought within the mind's range of greater value, for practical purposes, than any previous ones. The intricate organization of the parts of creation as means for meeting certain ends, the supplies of 224 <5N LAND CONCENTRATION AND nature to satisfy wants, their adaptability to requirements, the uniformity and beauty of nature generally prevailing, and the tendency of the general human will, second only to the supreme one, to work in harmony with that nature, all struck him as a proof of a supreme design and will over all ; while the experience of opposing elements causing a certain degree of disturbance throughout, arising specially from the action of the separate and individual will of some, ever taking exceptional courses, deviating from nature, instilled in him the distinct and absolute differences going by the names of good and evil, and taught him that the former should be conformed to, and the latter should be avoided. Then became further developed the moral sense, of which we see the earliest illustration in the commandments to neither murder, steal, nor bear false witness, with which all subsequent legislation for the conduct of life has been made to fit, and from which it is dangerous and repugnant to our general nature to deviate; and there followed, through the mysterious influence of sympathy and esteem for fellow-creatures, the inspiration of a sense of duty, of merit and demerit in actions, of reward and retribution attaching to them, explicable only by the combined light of IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 225 the intelligence and the attraction and repulsion for objects and actions, arising from the human sentiments ; and it was through his thus developed faculties and sentiments which led to these dis- coveries, we may say of rhoral truths, that man was at length enabled to take a survey of his own general condition in the state of society of which we have already spoken as a formation by his will and the outcome of his natural instinct, and that he learnt to appreciate that which is right and wrong in it. On consideration of his circum- stances generally, he has become sensible before all things that knowledge, though proceeding in its origin from the mind and sentiments, has acquired its greatest development from man being in a state of society, and that the most important events and changes are the outcome of that state. The beginning and the growth of trade, the medium adopted for exchange, and the appliances found- for it, which have caused commerce to increase to its present proportions, the edifices and structures which we see apparently able to withstand the ravages of countless ages, the works of utility and art, the discoveries of science, the inventions of every description, the soarings of the philosophic mind, the accumulated stores of knowledge, the Q 226 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND entire fabric of our political and social institutions, the basis upon which they rest, are all instances to him of the work of mankind in the associated state ; and they show that with man isolated no such results could have occurred, and in the same manner that he was led, for the purpose of arriving at a true estimate of the position of each of its members in regard to its wealth, to view each in his relation to his possessions, for appreciation of his political rights he was bi'ought to consider also the relation of all those constituting society one to the other. There is evidence that, impressed by these proofs of his supremacy in a state of society and other considerations, man's mind was at length brought to bear upon the act of his will which formed it, and it was then that, more or less distinctly, many began to realize the cause of that act in the wants of mankind, which give it a right to the fruits of the earth, and that they saw in society a body suited for the task of utilizing them, and an identity of interest with that of its members, which would best secure its efforts, being in the proper direction for that purpose ; whence it became manifest that the act must have been one of convention between one and all, viz. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 22/ a convention on the part of each to contribute a share to the necessary measures for affording general protection, and on the part of the whole to join in affording that protection, and devise the measures for the same, creating thereby relative rights and obligations between one and all, and that in such rights and obligations alone can a proper foundation of society be assumed. At the •same time, many became also generally aware that .the course of society has been very much one of struggling, each for himself, in which the poor have been overmatched by the powerful, and that, there- fore, those objects of the convention have been only partially carried out ; and these facts have made the many the more conscious of the necessity, in the interest of the poor, of extending, regulating, and perfecting the system of association under which they clearly exist. We have already spoken at sufficient length upon -what we believe to be the true principles and wrongs of society, not to go into that subject again at any length, and if we make any allusion to them now, it is only in order to bring particu- larly under notice the universal respect that exists for the law, though in many instances they may have actually caused and perpetuated those wrongs. 228 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND That respect for the law exists only because the, law is assumed to be by convention under the general will. The people revere any edict which by long standing may be shown to be in force through their approval or sufferance, and they are conscious that without respect paid to it society would be impossible ; they, in fact, believe the laws to express the conditions of their association, and it is for that reason they are found to accept and abide generally by them. And so intent are they in their reverence for them that they will even assume them to be right in every case of long standing, as having received the people's approval, indirectly if not directjy. Aware that society,, although undeviating in its intentions for good purposes and unerring in its assertions of what it wants and desires for the satisfaction of its rights, is yet liable to error in devising means for their adjustment in the face of opposition and conflict of interests, they are generally inclined to consider wrong, laws as an effect of that shortcoming rather than the inequity which they have often been ; and so great is their attachment to law generally, in. view of the rights and benefits it confers and the obligations it imposes, that the generality will rarely join in or submit to a change of it, unless- IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 229 the change is brought about by forms of solemn repeal, with proof of observance of the conven- tion from which it is assumed to proceed. The union of the people in all such matters has been ever particularly conspicuous in their adherence to the principles of private property and the ties of family, which from time immemorial have con- stituted the basis of society, and to all reasonable measures, having for object the maintenance of order and peace, and also in their persistent efforts to keep off innovators, who would disturb the whole fabric by introduction of new principles. And on this point, if on no other, is distinctly proved the concert of society for a common in- terest and purpose. It is simply through this respect for the law, by reason of its assumed origin in a convention, that the people generally allow the holding of the land on the mere fictitious title of possession, or declaration of possession allowed by past legislation. There is no doubt that it is chiefly by the direc- tion the human wants and tendencies commonly take that each contributes his share to the purposes of well-being sought by the general will, and it is equally certain that a vast multitude never had any ideas in the matter, and that in their co-operation 230 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND they acted simply by the impulse of their feeling- and wants, causing them to unite for general pur- poses, as under convention ; and we must admit that the notion possessed by others, that all politi- cal rule has for basis a popular convention, was for a long time more spontaneous than reflected. Still, there can be no doubt that the notion has been developing considerably within the last few cen- turies, and is now formulated in the minds of many,, and we find the world, with few exceptions, agreed in the principles it embodies, whether by influence of study or of instinct, and it explains thoroughly the accepted relations of the members of society one to the other. But it is not to be supposed that the popular submission will continue so little accompanied by inquiry into the proper nature and object of government as in the past. The principle that convention is the true foundation of all political right is gradually obtaining clearness and getting engraved upon the public mind, and not only are the people beginning to know generally that it is certainly not obligatory upon them to preserve laws that have been enacted in disregard of that principle, but every day the chances are diminishing for any Government to exist that would pretend to act by any other.;. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 23 1 and though the people may, as they improve in knowledge, become more impressed with their duties of submission to the law, and even of protection towards the interests which it has created, they are beginning to see at the same time their duty to be in the direction of reform, where necessary to make the legislature accord with the principle which should have governed its enactments. For that reason it cannot be long before the holders of all political power will be made amenable as a first measure to the country they rule over, and before all effects of the old title to land on mere possession will be reversed by laws distributing the same. Nor can it be supposed that the people will allow the entire productiveness of the soil to be treated as income by its owner in the manner in which this is done. On the contrary, we must look forward to their insisting upon a proportion being set aside at the time of its collection, as representing that which is obtained by nature's agencies only, to go towards defraying the public expenditure. 232 ON' LAND CONCENTRATION AND CHAPTER XVIII. A social compact proved to be the foundation of all political rights and morality. Having completed our inquiry into the cause of the poverty prevailing in society, notwithstanding the superabundance of the supplies provided by nature for the general requirement, and having endeavoured to explain that this condition has been occasioned through the violation of the rights mankind have to those supplies and to freedom from molestation — rights that govern a convention existing between one and all for common protection, the conclusions to be drawn, therefore, if our statements be correct, are that the main thing in any proposed arrangement of remedy, would be to endeavour to give full effect to these conventional arrangements or decisions of society, which constitute a distinct social compact, forming the foundation of all political right. But as the idea of there having been such a compact. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 233 and more especially the idea that it works •effectively and continuously, meets with much opposition and some derision, we shall be bound to explain ourselves further upon it. As a preliminary, in the first place, we pretend to advance that no laws or appointments to office for effecting the purposes of society, can rationally be admitted to be settled for any time, or binding, except under compact for mutual protection, in which one and all take part more or less, according to their ability and as they are concerned. For de- ride the idea of the compact, the obligations of co- operation and submission, which it alone can create, disappear, and there would be none except those which circumstances would compel one to fulfil ; and force then ruling, it would only be logical that all those possessing it should oppose force to force to protect their rights the best way they can, when they believe them to be violated. And there is immediately laid, as against the continuous and binding settlement naturally arising out of the com- pact, every element of war, discord, and insta- bility, and not a law or institution would have any foundation for standing attacks, except in the force that supported it. The state of society under com- pact would be human and intellectual, as derived 234 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND in its acknowledgment of rights and obligations from the operation of the mind and sentiments. On the other hand, its state under mere force would be that of the animal under the lash of the herdsman. It will be our endeavour now to prove the existence of such a compact at the origin of all society, and that it is of continuous existence wherever society subsists. Meanwhile, we will say a few words upon the points of the opposi- tion to this idea, and we shall probably, as we go on, find occasion to develop our reasons for the statements which we have already advanced. It will 'Suffice for our purpose if we confine ourselves to a review of the arguments of two of the opponents of the highest merit — Paley,. Archdeacon of Carlisle, and the philosopher Hume. Paley, in the chapter of his Essays which relates- to the duty of submission to government, states that the compact presumed to resolve this duty to civil government into an universal obligation is supposed to be twofold. Firstly, an express contract by the primitive founders of the State, who, in the first place, unanimously consented to be bound by the resolutions of the majority, and in the next place fixed the fundamental regula- tions, and then constituted in one person or an IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 235 assembly a standing legislature, to whom the government of the state was thenceforward com- mitted, and whose laws the several members of the convention were, by their first undertaking, thus personally engaged to obey ; and he states that the transaction is called the social compact, and the supposed original regulations compose what is meant by the constitution, and form on one side the inherent indefeasible prerogative of the Crown and on the other the unalienable im- prescriptable birthright of the subject. Secondly, a tacit or implied compact by all succeeding members of the State, who, by accepting its pro- tection, consent to be bound by its laws. Further on, in the same chapter, he states that this account of the matter is founded upon a supposition false in facts and leading to dangerous conclusion, and he assigns for the only ground of the subject's obligation, the will of God as collected from expe- diency. Almost every one will be agreed that the facts alleged by Paley, firstly, in connection with what he calls the transaction of the stated express con- tract, are no longer, if they ever were supposed to be, universally the beginning of civil government. Meetings of a nature somewhat similar to those 236 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND described may have taken place, but by no logic can it be attempted to be shown that, in the origin •of societies, the proceedings at such first meetings would of themselves have the effect of binding future generations to the constitutions formed and the appointments made at them. Besides, Paley assumes here, in the first place, a transfer of the sovereignty of the people, in error, to supposed primitive founders of the State, and thence to the Crown, and the compact really to be between the subjects of the State and the Crown ; and he makes the assumption under the idea that the advocates of the compact pretend in that manner to explain the relations between the Crown and the subjects and the independence of the latter in the case of the former breaking it. The social compact is altogether different from what Paley alleges it to be, for it is understood to be between each individual in society, in other words, between the subject and society itself which comprises all its subjects, the whole ever retaining its sovei-eignty, which is unalienable, and it is not between the subject and the Government, who are both simply members or agents to whom society delegates its powers, and can give for or by themselves no substantial guarantee for anything they may undertake. The IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 237 compact, secondly, supposed by P.aley is, in a great measure, the one we are asserting, except that it is not an after-proceeding to the express compact, but the one compact originally made and con- tinuing by which all are bound, But as Dr. Paley does not admit the existence of either the alleged first or second compact, and condemns entirely the principles of both on account of certain con- sequences which he assumes, let us consider his conclusions as to the nature of the obligation,, if any, which he states nevertheless devolves upon man to submit to civil government. He states that the only ground of that obligation is the will of God as collected from expediency. The doctrine is lofty, and would be sufficient to the religious mind. But to many others the obligation to be inferred from it would be simply obligation on the ground that it is expedient, for the interest of subjects collectively, that each should submit to government in some form. The argument thus confined cannot stand, for it is clear that it is founded upon the principle that the utility of the institution to one's self is- really the obligation, while utility creates really no obligation. It was on that account that Paley was compelled to introduce as the reason^ 238 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND for submission the high one of religion, which supposes religious belief that can form, however, no basis of argument for the secular mind ; and it leaves so undefined the grounds for submission to existing forms and rulers of government, that any one who in his judgment would consider the continuance of such inexpedient would be authorized to have recourse to force to upset them. There is before us, in Hume's Essay on the theory of the original compact, the following paragraph : — "When we consider how nearly equal, all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties till cultivated by education, we must necessarily allow that nothing but their own consent could, at first, associate them together and subject them to any authority. The people, if we trace government to its first origin in the woods and deserts, are the source of all power and jurisdiction, and voluntarily, for the sake of peace and order, abandoned their native liberty and received laws from their equal and companion. The conditions upon which they were willing to submit were either expressed or were so clear and obvious that it might well be esteemed superfluous to expi-ess them. If this, then, be meant by the IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 239 original contract, it cannot be denied that all government is at first founded on a contract, and that the most ancient rude combinations of man- kind were formed chiefly by that principle. In vain are we asked in what records this charter of our liberties is registered. It was not written on parchment, nor yet on leaves or barks of trees. It preceded the use of writing and all the other ■civilized arts of life. But we trace it plainly in the nature of man, and in the equality, or some- thing approaching equality, which we find in all the individuals of that species. The force which now prevails, and which is founded on fleets and armies, is plainly political, and derived from authority, the effect of established government. A man's natural force consists only in the vigour of his courage, which could never subject multitudes to the com- mand of one. Nothing but their own consent and their sense of the advantages resulting from peace and order could have had that influence." If Hume had said no more upon the subject, we should have expressed concurrence with his state- ment and assumed, from the principle he admits, that he believes in the compact ; but he does not there close the subject, for he says further, "Yet this consent could not be the basis of a regular Z40 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND administration;" ''no compact or agreement, it is evident, was expressly formed for general sub- mission ; " " obedience or subjection becomes sa familiar that most men make no inquiry about its origin or cause, more than about the most universal laws of the universe ; " " almost all the Governments have been founded originally either on usurpation or conquest, or both, without any pretence of fair consent or voluntary subjection of the people — nothing is discoverable in them, except force and violence ;" and his conclusion appears throughout to be that government, instead of being a delegated power of the people, exists and maintains itself by a force presumably inherent within itself, and by the submission of, the people, which he defines as allegiance. Feeling pressed to explain the grounds for the submission, he states it to be "because society could not otherwise subsist;" and he con- cludes that this necessity makes up the obligation to allegiance, which binds the people to govern- ment. But in asking himself to whom allegiance is due, he says that " the determination of it to this or that prince or form of government is dubious." Now, it is to be observed that necessity of sub- mission for subsistence being simply an obligation in the sense of compulsion from circumstances, it IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 24I cannot bind man in the way that allegiance does ; that is to say, from a sense of duty, which implies a consideration received from the party to whom it is paid. It is to be noted that Hume, in alluding to the duty of allegiance on the part of those who have to submit, makes no mention of a corresponding consideration due from those who govern ; in fact, none is to be conceived from his statements, as he accepts government as mere force. The fact is, the fulfilment of a corresponding duty on the part of the governing is the condition of the duty of the governed ; and Hume, by his omission to state any duty as acting upon the former, is not entitled to use the word " allegiance " at all as binding upon the latter. The necessity, in the sense of compulsion from the effects of lawless- ness and licence, of there being a government in a nation for enforcing obedience to rules and restrain- ing the wicked is a mere maxim, and that is all Hume's statement amounts to ; it carries no rule with it for application. It gives none for the holding of office by one in preference to another, whether it be A or B, except the rule that he who is the strongest should do so, which is absurd. But it is evident that in the formation of government, which is the end to be arrived at, the first step must R 242 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND be to endow it with force for its purpose, which can only be derived from the members of society in their collective capacity, and that certain parties would be required to exercise its powers, whom it would be necessary to name or accept. And in this necessity is implied a common object, between society in its collective capacity providing the power, and those who would be named to exercise it, viz. that of promoting the interests of one and all, consequently also the joint duty of the fulfilment of that object. Without an acknow- ledgment of this common object between society and government, who would act as servants of society, there would be no grounds for acceptance of government in any form ; but in the case where the acknowledgment has been given, or can be assumed to have been so given, and it has been once founded by nomination and not disturbed, or it has been accepted by long standing, it has the character of legitimacy as an effect of the will of society, and a claim thus to be respected. There being in the essays of Paley and Hume, therefore, no proof of the existence of the duty of the fulfilment of that common object, no guide for our submission to any power in particular in government, it is only left for us to turn our IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 243 attention from the impracticable grounds for obliga- tion to submission, which the former adduces, and from the statements of the latter, as mere subtle arguments in disparagement of society and in defence of despotism, and to consider the theory of the social compact under which we pretend to show that a sound principle of political rights is established, and the requisites of obligation of the subject to submission for the carrying-on of govern- ment, and the duty of government as acting on behalf of society, are proved. Taking now the question of the existence of the social compact, we say that it is proved in the ever-occurring act of each of the members of society joining for common protection under that body, or, in other words, under the nation when it is formed in that state. For in this act is implied a convention between one and all for the purpose, the fulfilment of which, on the part of the nation, is guaranteed by the combination of powers composing it, and by its interests being identical with those of its members, fixing a distinct obliga- tion upon each to contribute, according to his means, towards the common object, and as the nation may direct. Indeed no greater or more solemn compact can be conceived. 244 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND A man isolated can exercise effectively no power, except of a limited physical nature. It is only through the aid of association that he can succeed in exerting any, even by the highest moral means of influence and persuasion. It is the same with the members of the ruling body : for the force neces- sary to them they must depend entirely upon the supplies and services they can procure from society. The members of the Grovernment would, there- fore, be under the same obligations to the nation as the subject generally, and in addition, in con- sideration of the power entrusted to them, they would be under special duty to exercise it properly. The general objects of the functions of the rulers under the compact are to provide means for the protection of each against people outside their country who are not under the compact to which they are parties ; that is to say, against those com- posing other nations, and against those forming part of their own nation who repudiate the compact, as in cases of civil war, or a state of things akin to that, and against subjects within, who evade its obligations generally or misrepresent them. It is chiefly through the compact failing in the face of such opposition, that nations and nationalities die out. But it is to be observed that the com- IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 245 pact tends always to re-establish itself on the amalgamation, merging, or revival of nations ad- vanced to the state of society. And in these facts we see the great importance of the compact to a nation, not only for its position in the world, but for its mere subsistence. It is clear that the ruling body under the com- pact, in their relation with those they govern, whether upon the throne or in the appointed assemblies or in the offices of the executive, can do no more than act to the best of their ability, according to what they believe to be the will of the people on their common grounds of claim, after seeking its signs, which can most assuredly not be neglected, and that they should express this assumed will in law ; and as to other matters, in which the people themselves would be always widely disagreeing, their rulers would have no alternative but to act according to their conscience of what would be justice. And if, in acknowledging their indebtedness to the nation as citizen and ruler holding a special trust from them, they con- form conscientiously and with proper ability to this course, it is all that, it appears, can be asked of them under the main headings of their obliga- tions, and it is thus that we understand the working of the compact. 246 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND There can be no doubt that the principles and duties of the social compact are, to a great extent, observed in the midst of us, and that there is a growing consciousness of them, and this sense is clearly manifested in the good will with which State purposes are generally met by contributions and acts of loyalty to those in office. But, at the same time, it is evident that acquiescence in all its prin- ciples and duties is not universal, and the existence of the compact itself is even still by some denied. The duties, either misunderstood or denied, have been those especially which the compact assigns to rulers, as trustees to the nation, in consideration of the power they hold from it, and the purposes for which they are appointed. In some cases rulers from the throne have disclaimed all responsi- bility for their acts to the nation ; in others, such as popular assemblies, they have pretended to be the people themselves, regardless of the fact that no governing body can have by itself power to perform or guarantee a single act of the nation, and that whatever power they may possess must be derived from the nation, which proves the error in the position assumed in both cases ; and there can be no doubt that this error upon the duties of those in power, has been very much the cause of the state of things we are inquiring into. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 247 Having now endeavoured to prove the existence of the social compact by the reciprocity of the obligations it imposes, and that it does work in practice, to some extent, under difficulties, we must say here a few words upon those obligations. In their variety they represent generally a debt between one and all, which appears in the compact with corresponding claims between the parties ; and the strength of both indebtedness and claims is so great upon our nature that the former has the special name of duty of allegiance, carrying with it the utmost solemnity ; and, as by design of Providence, in order to promote its observance for general purposes, the sense of solemnity reaches a degree of sublimity in the human mind, by the operation of sympathy, for those to whom we are indebted. The word " allegiance " describes the act to which man is pledged towards the nation by his indebtedness to it. There is no word, that we are aware of, for the protection the nation owes in return. But the latter duty does not the less exist, and the solemnity of the reciprocal obliga- tions is such, that many are ready to sacrifice their personal interest, even their lives, to carry them out. We see this in the feelings by which the generality are animated, and which are of the very 248 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND highest order, such as love for near family ties, patriotism, and care of the common honour, all sentiments the very opposite to the care of one's subsistence that Hume believes the sole motive and object in the formation and preservation of nearly every Government, and this position that duty holds in the mind appears conclusive proof that the deep sense of it is the result of a compact. Note, however, that it is not uncommonly asked. What ground can there be for all this discussion and these efforts to show that the duty of submis- sion is derived from a social compact ? By force in government and submission have we not all that is required for its administration ? What need can there be to call its origin a social compact, or by any particular name? It will be advisable for us to look into these objections before we conclude. By the theory of Hume, upon which they are based, it is assumed that force is an inherent character of government, derived from its members exclusively, and that, in point of fact, government is force ; its justification is allowed in the objects of public welfare, which it seeks or pretends to promote ; and allegiance is simply a name for the act of submission to its powers ; and it is thus that the two — the force, in its IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 249 inherency to rulers, which enables them to govern, and the spirit, which causes the governed to submit — that it is stated to eflfect all that can be done and expected in the way of government. But it is clearly not so. The employment of force in government, so long as it has not the character of being assented to, in consideration of its per- formance of duty, would afford just pretext to any one to seize its reins, if he thought that he would do more for the public good than those in office ; and the natural result would be instability, which would tend to make all govern- ment impossible. Force, really, under the circum- stances, being bound by no duty, could trust to no obligation for its support, and would, therefore, have only an ephemeral existence by artifice in holding material agencies for its purpose from the common produce, not constituting civil govern- ment at all, but in a state of nature, as it would, for the time being, stand independent altogether ; whereas, with force in government, expressly or impliedly dependent upon a compact, there would be in that very circumstance the character of popular assent to it, and the force itself would be actually made up by provision brought in by the people under the compact, thus closing the 2 so ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND door to pretenders as long as the people continue their tribute. Allegiance, as an expression of submission under the compact, would give these results, and in them would be the foundation of stability, an utterly opposite state to what we have shown to be the inevitable consequences of mere force, relying solely on itself and on submission from others for what they might chance to con- tribute, which submission would not deserve the name of allegiance. But, of course, when force in government becomes of long standing, its character then is altered by sufferance, and it would be held as assented to and supported by allegiance under the compact. And in the comparative stability which we see in Governments at most times, we hold additional proof of the actual realization of the compact and its working ; for, evidently, there could be no permanent state of order unless its principles prevailed. We are again brought back to the admission of the existence of the social compact and its good effects under working, above all, in the record it contains of the general obligations on the part of rulers as well as ruled, superseding altogether the class or feudal compact of old. It points to the general maxim that there will never be a good or IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 25 1 solid constitution but the one whose law reigns in the heart of the citizen, and that as long as a legislative force does not reach this the laws will be evaded. It is clear that the principal way for this would be to frame laws which, in ensuring justice, freedom, and property, would procure gene- ral assent ; and although it may ever be difficult for the legislator to fulfil these objects, the light and guide the maxim affords would show unmistakably the path he should unflinchingly take in the per- formance of this office. The conclusion we have now to draw from all these remarks, which are now coming to a close, is that the main point of each should be to form and endeavour to arrange that every one in a nation should be brought within the pale of the social compact, so that he can neither evade his obliga- tions nor become independent of them in power or means by artificial holding of an undue pro- portion of the common produce, or otherwise. And the more effectually can this be brought about, the less shall we see of those evasions of duty in monopoly of property and power, which are paralyzing the action of government in regard to its chief purposes, and causing so many homes to be desolate and poor. 2S2 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND CHAPTER XIX. Sovereignty of the people and distribution of property, deductions of the social compact, and the surest principles for consolidating order and improving production. In advocating the distribution of the land as the proper course for the just satisfaction of the human wants, we have asserted that the principle in its application would afford society the surest guarantee of the gradual increasing productiveness which is essential to its growth. In dwelling upon the facts, which to our mind prove conclusively the sovereign power of the people, we have further asserted that the acceptance of the popular supremacy would be the most certain foundation for the order and stability required, above ajl things, in a State. It remains for us now to more particularly show how these advantages will be gained by bringing the two principles into practice. The main effect of distribution of the land is to give wide opportunities for the association of labour IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 253 with the material necessary for the support and enjoyment of life. It destroys the anomaly of estates throughout a country which are too large for the wants of their owners, and which, by that circumstance, must remain, in most cases, unde- veloped as regards many of the useful purposes of the community. It further destroys monopoly in the holding of raw supplies, which is one of the greatest curses of society. It promotes wholesome competition, and facilitates free disposal of such supplies and any other kind of possessions. It establishes essentially free combination by general association, itself a result of union among the members of mankind for the common purposes of life, carrying necessarily with it force within them to effect those purposes ; and not only is that so, but in its working it ever reacts by extend- ing any general existing union, consequently de- veloping its inherent force, and as that force by these and other circumstances gradually increases, so must its effects in productiveness be not only greater, but more generally diffused. We see already in life, where the principle has an oppor- tunity of exercise, the force it makes up from common interest, tending every day to over- power all selfish and class interests opposing it ; 254 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND and nowhere is there a more palpable proof that development of produce under such circumstances is incalculable than in the enormous expansion of personalty out of produce that has taken place in this country under laws encouraging its distri- bution, notwithstanding the check upon it of con- centration of real property. Let us compare now distribution and its work- ing with the reverse, viz. concentration of real property among the few. It is absurd to suppose that a nation at any time, by combination of voluntary association, would deliver itself hand and foot in a state of dependence and slavery, deprived of the use of most of the fruits of the earth, to any one or a class. Yet the state of a nation in that condition is simply the effect of the concentration of everything among a section, as above described. That condition, therefore, as it is the reverse of distribution, so it must be the result of a combination of a character different from that which causes distribution ; and there is no escaping the conclusion that the different character is dissociation or disintegration for the purpose of benefiting the few, the operation of which is to divide the masses, to separate them wedgelike from the material necessary for their IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POI^ITICAL POWER. 255 work, their subsistence, and their enjoyment, to restrict the association of labour with the soil, to fix prices by monopoly, to compel the multitude to minister to the luxuries of the few and deprive them of political power, all which measures must unfailingly have the effect of keeping down produce and making the prices of it higher in proportion to people's means generally than they would be under distribution. No other condition can ex- hibit greater elements, politically and socially, of disunion and provocation, making government really weak, notwithstanding the artifice that must have been used to make it appear strong. Of course, distribution of land, as well as of all produce, would be the unfailing state of things under a Government acknowledging the popular supremacy ; and as the acknowledgment would, as a natural consequence, be accompanied by acts con- ferring the necessary political power upon a wide- spread number of the members in any given state, there would be created, with the advantages of union, force, and productiveness, gained by such dis- tribution for the common purposes of life, the like advantages of widespread union and force for com- mon political control of selfish tendencies through the political power delegated to so many. For the 256 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND chief interest of such a body would be in the observance of order, and the power it would hold would be most effectual for its maintenance. It is evident that no better security can exist for such a purpose. Compare with this, the guarantee for stability that can be offered by an authority pretending to rule independently of popular control. Such power would, at the very outset, be under all the disad- vantages of dissociation just described, although it would certainly have the force which concen- tration provides. So long as it claimed indepen- dence, so long would it, in order to exist, have to exercise upon others the pressure it com- menced by. Itself the effect of disunion, it would promote that disorder, and the seeds of provoca- tion within it would be ever developing. What would this be but an alarming evil } and by what means can a Government live under it .' It is evident, and history further shows it, that such a power can only last by fiction as to its strength, by misrepresentations as to its rights and origin, by undue influence and misappropriation and other acts generally, that can at the best only give it a transient life. The chief element of such a power is, therefore, instability, and there is nothing for it IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 257 but to fall when its fictitiousness comes to be known. Simply an effect of conquest which has either preceded the state of society altogether or at one time broken it up, it is bound either to vanish or succumb to society, when the latter reconstitutes itself, and to work under it, which is oftenest its end. With reference, again, to the benefit of distribu- tion. It is already found by experience that when land is dealt with under its laws, as it becomes then more generally a material in the hands of the people for the exercise of their labour, few hold it who will not, or cannot, cultivate it under circum- stances making it pay, and therefore few attempt to hold it in any extent beyond their intellectual, physical, and financial power of dealing with it.. The combined effect of free trade, with the division of the land, which would be to reduce morei generally in proportion to people's means, the prices of the raw supplies from the land, by break- ing in upon the monopoly of them and by intro- ducing free ownership, would, it is to be appre- hended, with a proper rent-charge, still further diminish the number of those attempting to live out of it, in addition to the hands that would be employed in its cultivation. Estates would, there- s 258 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND fore, according to that, in course of time, for any purpose of cultivation, become nearly all reduced by the system of land division to just the proper size for their owners efficiently to work and live out of them, and the landholders retaining lands without working them, would do so only as a luxury and for the ground rent they would get from them.* Yet the lands might still be made available by association for carrying out the largest under- takings, and the interest of the owners, who would be obliged to cultivate them, and whose condition would no longer be remarkable for the possession of excessive superfluity, would be a security for their seeking to make every part, in order to raise enough to meet their own requirements, as pro- ductive as the wants of the people would warrant. The power to reserve prices as at present almost ceasing, the landowners would be compelled gene- rally to compete for a living with others offering to sell their goods. By that means, trades in the necessaries of life, through which the lower orders of people would be enabled to supply each other, would extend, giving far more employment than * Lord Salisbury lately announced the intention on his part to propose that power be conferred for selling the glebe lands, which shows a tendency in the direction stated, to part with agricultural lands. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER, 259 the present industries in mere luxuries. It is known also that productiveness, of whatever pro- perty, is most stimulated by the existence of a medium of exchange widely circulated, and that in no case can the circulation be greater, than when the medium is in the hands of the people at large. Under a system of distribution of the land, the land itself would, by its produce, afford the large mass of its owners that medium which would necessarily become widely circu- lated by the demand people would make for the produce from the nature of their wants, and the demand would, as a general consequence, be •considerably more backed by means through the fact of their distribution, than it can be at the present day, thus more encouraging for supplies to come forward, and giving every reason to be- lieve that trades in luxury will not be diminished by the change, but that they will be eventually more prosperous through it. It must be understood that we do not pretend to say that monopoly of land and supply from it can be absolutely abolished by the measures which are indicated. A certain degree of it will always be inevitable through the virtue and Avisdom of some and the vice and folly of others, 260 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND profiting by or neglecting opportunities, and through the varying quantity of the produce under dispensation of nature from time to time in the different localities, the bad effects of which, in passing, it must be observed, would be considerably counteracted by general free trade. Our remarks are not directed against monopoly of that nature, and this leads us to state that, according to alF probability, making allowance for the circum- stances which would be brought about by that species of monopoly, and which would to some extent affect prices, the prices would, as a rule, under a proper system of distribution, untram- melled by unjust laws, as described, be regulated almost entirely by the labour bestowed in creating and bringing to market the supplies, and by the labour through which the money offered for the supplies has been earned. The prices could not be lower, as a rule, than the sum the owner would require from the sale of them to subsist by, and they could not be higher than the amount held by those making a demand for them, and they would,, having regard to these rules, be further regulated and finally fixed by the quantities on supply and the demand for them, yielding eventually a reduced proportion compared with what they now receive IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 261 to those holding capital or land for their interest or rent from these, and taking no personal part in production, but considerably improving produce generally, and proportionately to it, the means of obtaining it for those who can or will exercise their labour in that direction. Therefore, not only should the vain absolute demand for necessaries now prevailing on the part of a multitude who are unable to pay for what they want, be replaced by a more general effectual demand under a system of distribution ; but the value of commodities, which is now fixed so much by artifice, would be considerably more, measured by " labour, the only ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can, at all times and places, be estimated and compared" (Adam Smith), and there would be a more general inducement to save, because the power to save would be wider spread, and the advantage and profit from doing so, would accrue wholly to the party effecting the saving. As there would, therefore, arise from the whole process of the change the necessity of a more general application of each person's labour, in order to secure the means of subsistence, and a wider encouragement to save either for the purpose of 262 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND laying in capital or for a provision for later purposes, and there would be, further, the increased stimulus to activity in production which the new circulating medium of exchange — viz. the land dis- tributed throughout the population — would create, and supply would in all respects be brought for- ward under a system of competition as well as the means backing demand for them, there would con- sequently be brought into force and play all the greatest elements in man's nature, power, and cir- cumstances for productiveness of the necessaries of life, and the natural inevitable consequence would be an increase in them, which, by means of dis- tribution, would surely secure to millions the inestimable benefit of a provision in old age, beside other advantages which are incalculable as against the state of a people in a country like ours, where few and large estates prevail, under which the immense bulk, unable to raise any produce independently of their owners, do not obtain in wages for their work enough to live upon, see their ill-requited labour form a foundation of capital for their employers — many of whom by means of their estates have dispensed from ever contributing any industry of their own — and after long incessant toil have no alternative, in order IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 263 to obtain relief at the term of their existence, when their power to work has ceased, but to become a burthen on the parish rates. Facts and reasoning all confirm the conclusion that the more general necessity that would arise for people to labour for their own support, and the encouragement to create capital and work the land, that would spring up. from the diffusion of the one and from the division of the other, under a system of distribution, would not only cause well-being to become more equalized than it is in the reverse state, but would eventually result in a greater productiveness than has yet been attained. We are aware that the conclusions which we have drawn here of improved productiveness, under a system of distribution, are, unfortunately, flatly denied by many. It is, for instance, asserted that it is not expedient that legislation for real property should be assimilated to the laws of personal property ; that division of the land, instead of increasing production, will diminish it ; that the capital invested in improving the land under the present system not only causes the land to be more productive than it would be under dis- tribution, but leaves a large amount of spare labour for other purposes, and that much of this capital 264 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND would, under the change, be withdrawn from the land ; and it is especially stated that the proposed ■equalization of means would have the effect of simply reducing the rich to the condition of the poor, which itself would be worse than it is ; that hovels would replace more generally the better class of buildings now existing ; and that the great bulk in obtaining possession of land, though not able to live by working it, would strive to do ■so ; therefore, the condition of master, servant, ■owner, and dependent would be worse instead ■of being improved. These adverse allegations repose mainly upon the assertion that real property is not of the nature of personal, and that the world ■depend essentially upon the proper treatment of the former, which can only be carried out success- fully on a large scale by skill and capital combined, which the new class of owner that would come in under a system of distribution would not possess. Now, it is true that real property is different in its nature from personal property, and that the -difference exists in the former being the main stock of all periodical produce, and the latter being merely that produce. But what reason -can that distinction give for the two being subjected to the precisely opposite treatment they IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 26g undergo with us? Why should real property be restricted in division, while personal property is not ? Both are actually produce — the one exclu- sively of nature's creation, the other of man's labour in combination with nature — and both, in order to be utilized, must undergo the application of man's energy ; and the only mode of its application is by labour, the incentives and en- couragement to which are the same, whether it is applied to the one produce or the other. Why should not capital of a proper amount combine with sufficient skill on a system of division to make the land properly fruitful, as well as its produce ? We see the adjustment of capital and skill take place in this manner in every branch of industry and trade under the laws of personalty, when their action is untrammelled ; where, then, can there be a reason for assuming that the adjustment of these two elements of productive- ness, on application to the land, would not be equally complete and beneficial, if they are allowed the same freedom in relation to it? Evidently there can be no answer to the following statement, that the laws of development of land, under the operation of capital and skill, are precisely the same as those of productiveness generally from 266 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND its produce or personalty. When there exists for both classes of property the same facilities for dealing with them, capital will seek the best investment, and skill will look to the most profit- able field for its employment, whether it be land or produce, and the result in the land or produce drawing capital or skill must be the same under similar circumstances of legislation ; it will be according to the advantages they respectively offer to investment or labour. And it is absurd to suppose for one instant that the land will suffer in its character of encouragement for investment by its passing from the hands of the few belonging to the leisurely class who do not work it to the many that would work it. The effect of the change must be precisely the reverse. With reference to the alleged necessity of large pro- perties and capital on a considerable scale for carrying out agricultural undertakings, it is beyond a doubt that where such would be really necessary they could be conducted by associated means equally as well, if not better, than by the hands of the largest private owners ; and here we must observe that capital, which is necessary for operations on a large scale, is often misapplied when used for small operations and IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 26/ an injury to general productiveness, and that it might, with advantage to one and all, in small cases, be superseded by the labour of the owner with the small resources he would possess, thus freeing capital, and giving him ample scope for his labour where it could best exclusively exercise itself. There would be by that means fresh opportunities given for labour hitherto unemployed among us, which would constitute a new source of untold wealth where there is a widespread number of small independent holdings. Then there is the argument that owners of small plots will strive to live by them, though the land may not be sufficient to keep them. The writer can positively deny this to be the case in countries where distribution is the rule and other industries exist, and the statement has always struck him as a Jesuitical assertion, and a calumny against the lower order of the human race. He was a resident for several years in the villages of the provinces of Picardy, Normandy, and the Orleannais, in France, and nowhere did he find the peasant proprietors attempt to live solely by land that could not keep them. The property they owned was various in extent, consisting in numerous cases of a residence with a simple plot of garden, in others of a 268 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND residence with three or four acres and upwards, say to four hundred acres. The owners of mere garden land were chiefly labourers ; and the pro- prietors of a few acres, not sufficient for their maintenance, were almost invariably artisans or ■employers; and the larger holdings were owned by parties who made a profession of cultivating land, and who, styling themselves cultivators, farmed, when they could find the opportunity, the many small pieces belonging to absentees, and ploughed and did the heavy work required on the small holdings of three or four acres. The minor properties were in every case a pro- vision for a rainy day, and a resource to fall back upon when all else would fail. The writer knew the peasant proprietors in great numbers to be labourers, masons, coopers, carpenters, joiners, and people employed under public companies ; and against the picture of misery which has been drawn of their condition, he can oppose one of plenty, from experience of homes, of wardrobes full of worsted and linen goods, and of store-rodms replete with food and provisions, the effect not only of thrift and saving, but of labour, of which the cost was never a matter of consideration, as it was all bestowed in the improvement of what was their IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 269 own, and this result in productiveness surpassed anything that can be conceived from the produce obtained through the mere hireling. And there is one notable effect of these widespread properties, that they constitute such a stand-by and resource that they enable their owners to accept, in many cases, the low wages which compete with us. The unfavourable picture given seems to relate more to the peasants without possessions, and who, as mere yearly tenants, struggle to make a living by farming other people's property. There is no thought with us of denying the existence of distress in France among that class of tenants, but when this distress is taken as a proof against the land system prevailing there, we are obliged to remark that, from whatever cause it may arise, it is not one-twentieth of that existing in England under the system of large estates. Our assumption of the probability of the good effects of substituting the principle of distribution for the land, for that of its concentration, is founded upon the actual state of things in the countries where distribution rules, and it is in no way laid down either from infatuation with the system or from mere theoretical reasoning upon it. It is the result of obsei-vations on the part of the writer 2/0 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND during a long residence in the rural districts of France — not a tour — during which he became in- timately acquainted with many of the peasant population of all classes there, and he had oppor- tunities of learning their circumstances, habits, and means, and the working of the system. A country can be really strong only by the resources of its soil and its people being associated with it. The numerous proprietary in France are a greater bulwark for the protection of her people, in the interest of order and progress, than the restricted number of proprietors in this country, holding nearly all the land, can be to theirs. The cause of the unsettled condition of that country is one that with profit we may here dwell upon. It is to be traced almost entirely to errors in the last century, which brought about the French Revolution. The nobility and clergy, in assisting the monarchy, which was independent of all popular control, were oppressing the people generally, and were like a dead weight upon them. There was in the hands of those classes a systematic concentration at every point of privileges, pro- perty, and power; and gross inequalities of a grievous taxation, and most unjust distinctions of principles of legislation, were all in their favour ; IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 2/1 and the result was that the few in that high position were as a few are in this country — surfeited with superfluity, while the multitude were wanting the necessaries of life, and there circulated paradoxes like those we hear among us upon the advantage of big estates and of servitude for the masses. The Revolution was the reaction against those errors. Just as the great phenomena of the physical world can be accounted for in their proximate causes, which the mind can describe under certain terms, but which on further contemplation it is ■obliged to view and accept as effects produced by powers elsewhere beyond its apprehension, and as emanating from an infinite source ; or, to give an •example, just as the hurricane, the earthquake, the 5well of the ocean, occur, of which man defines the cause as existing in properties of the various substances of the earth, but respecting which he is totally unable to say whence came the power through which of those properties make such a terrific display — there arose the events ■of that great Revolution. General want under great privation, the pain that followed, and the feelings of anger and revenge that were aroused under the sense of the wrong the people were 272 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND enduring, made them rise against those at whose, hands they suffered, and these acted as the visible proximate cause of that terrible event. But it wa& an unfathomable power that directed their course, and never was its existence in unity and effec- tiveness more truly attested by facts. Devastation was general and relentless, bringing down institu- tions, sweeping away social distinctions, levelling conditions, sacrificing life and property, covering the country as with ruins, and making up an epoch called truly a reign of terror. As further attesting the infinite power which brought about these disasters, there appeared, distinguishable in time among the ruins, from principles which had been previously sown broad- cast by the philosophers, a growth of freedom, equality, and distribution. Like tender plants, they, required care in order to take root. But no sooner did they begin to develop than agencies, which clung to old privileges and could not forget them, and were also unable to learn anything from experience, made every effort to blast that growth. At times these agencies partially succeeded, and unfortunately were aided in their object of destruction by the misdirected course some had taken, under the great reaction, in IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 273 adopting the suicidal' idea for society of estab- lishing communism. It is the action of these agencies that troubles France ; the thought of the possibility of losing what she has gained in liberty, equality, and distribution that haunts the mind of her people — not the distribution of the land, which is her strength ; and these evils of her past, as well as the errors in the reaction, and the constant manifestation of the same main force, that guided the events of that revolution, against any flagrant violation of the great rights man should be ruled and subsist by, should be a lesson. In conclusion, it seems distinctly absurd to state against distribution of land that it is to the advantage of a country that there should be a set of people holding at leisure more land than they can have either the want or the ability to develop, on the grounds that the division will diminish production. In every work of any merit upon the subject of political economy, a protest is recorded against such large estates as the effects of pure monopoly, injurious alike to the working of the land and to the members of the human race dependent upon it ; and you see the protest nowhere more strongly entered than it is in the " Wealth of Nations," by Adam Smith. There is T 274 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND certainly an air of plausibility in the argument against the division, that in its being carried to extreme, the usefulness of the soil would be destroyed for mankind, inasmuch as the plots would in the end become so small that they could not be worked at all. At the same time, there is truly absurdity in the assumption that such a result could ever occur. Evidently the interest of mankind would be sufficient security that it would not happen ; and we have sufficient expe- rience of the working of the system elsewhere — in France and Belgium — to know that it does not tend so far, for no sooner are properties disin- tegrated by death or other circumstances than they reform generally for working by association, sales and purchase, and otherwise, into plots of workable size. As to the political reasons for maintaining such large estates, they have been already suffi- ciently exposed. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 275 CHAPTER XX. Concentration of property in land and irresponsibility of political power opposed to principles of the social compact, and debasing. It will be desirable, before closing this inquiry, to point out another and a special feature in the proceedings taken for checking the distribution of the land, and setting aside popular control, which gives conclusive proof of their error. The conversion of the large feudal tenancies into practically absolute freeholds, the laws and customs by which those holdings were perpetuated in the hands of the few, and the course followed later on, by which the holders were finally relieved from the ancient burthens attaching to their occupancy, without any equivalent tax being imposed upon them in their stead, make up very nearly the sum total of those proceedings. Naturally people who approve such measures would feel under the necessity of showing, to the satis- 276 ON. LAND CONCENTRATION AND faction of others as well as themselves, that the course and its results were for the good of man- kind, which they have attempted to do.* And it is here to be noted that it is on their very- reasoning that we have proof of the errors we have pointed out. They admit the hardship of large estates upon many, and the aggravation of that distress in numerous instances through the inde- pendence under which the owners hold them ; they admit the records of suffering the system inflicts, by rack-renting, evictions, and forced emigration ; and they allow the owners themselves to have been the proximate cause of those various inflictions, but they assert that the first cause lies far beyond us in the laws of nature, which require that the land should be cultivated, and that at the same time any pressure of population upon it should be checked. And they say that the existence of the landowner is necessary for bring- ing this about, as he must be mainly interested in forcing people, firstly, to labour where there is the land ; secondly, to emigrate when they become too many ; and the greater his estate and his power, the * We have noticed this line of defence of the land system in England in many publications, and it has been adopted in the Quarterly Review in connection with the land question in Scotland. IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. ^^^ better to their mind it is for that purpose. And they conckide that the owner is a mere instrument for carrying out these laws of nature, the good results of which could only be obtained at the cost of some distress ; but that the good attained has incomparably surpassed the suffering. Such a theory can be construed into nothing but an assertion that the part of government, for the good it has to do, is to be a scourge in the hands of the few over those under it. See, now, the in- fluence that has guided people in its adoption. They ignore the stimulus the human wants gene- rally create and the united efforts these wants cause in a common direction. They are unaware of the intelligence of mankind for contrivances to meet the same, and of its aspirations and greatness which manifest themselves in the union of its members for general purposes, especially their political union, which is capable of attaining the highest ends ; they can but faintly perceive that union and its progress, and what they do notice of it, they consider to be rather for the worse than for the better ; and experiencing a certain amount of productiveness and order of some sort under their system, they contend that the effective stimulus for the maintenance of that double advantage, can 278 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND only exist in the means of coercion which it provides, and in these being also vested for political purposes in the hands of the same few who are raised already by their holding of the land to the pinnacle of social power. What an amount of ignorance to start with ! What narrow views to influence and lead any one ! It would be absurd to admit the slightest ground for discussion in the idea that it must be beneficial to the people to surrender, in the first instance, to a class for any purpose of government all their rights in the fruits and agencies of nature, as they are compelled to do to further such a species of rule, nor need we for a moment hesitate to say that the suggestion of the sacrifice as being necessary, reveals a great deficiency of ingenious- ness on the part of those making or accepting it in sincerity. But what we wish particularly to observe is, that the direct effect of this rule, originating with ignorance and error, and em- ploying to attain its ends the harshest measures, apparently directed by a class against a class, while it is in reality aimed by a clique against the world, is to deteriorate the individual character of the subject generally, in allowing him no alternative but starvation or prison, when the IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 279 few in wealth or power, either directly or indirectly do not employ him ; in the general impoverish- ment the state of things inflicts upon him ; in the undue pressure it subjects him to ; in the excessive precariousness of existence with demoralization it causes generally. By leaving the passions of those in power unbridled, such a rule intensifies any tendency among them to domineer and in- dulge ; and the passions of those who have to submit are correspondingly heated to a pitch ever leading into conflict and violence, and among the latter the foul vices that want is known to breed develop as in a hot bed. Everywhere is waste and degradation. What greater proof of the deterioration can there be .'' Observe, also, the following circumstances against such rule, giving further evidence of its wrong principle. The popular elements of man's wants and aspirations, his intelligence ever creating combinations and means to meet them, are ever developing notwith- standing, and close sooner or later round those, thus ignoring or opposing them. We gather this from the accounts of the people's proceedings in this country, wresting the villeins from bondage, profiting by the protection and liberty gained by the nobles under the first charter, and later 28o ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND obtaining confirmation of many of their rights ; in other countries, demolishing State prisons, doing away with system of torture, forcing the sur- render of privileges, and when these are conceded too late, scattering to the wind the titles of estates founded upon them, and even blotting out of existence their owners. And what else can be the result of the deteriora- tion of man in his individual character, but the diminution of his quality for productiveness, general effectiveness, and all those ends which society thrives by. Truly, in the abasement of the in- dividual under subjection on the one hand, and the comparatively uncontrolled sway of the passions of those ruling on the other, lies the root of the anomaly which we have been studying. The communistic principle, as applied to the land and made to bear compulsorily upon all under Govern- ment administration, must produce deterioration of the same nature in teaching those who have done nothing that they have a right to share in an estate created in the soil by the labour of others ; but that system does not intend debasement, and it has the advantage in one way, that it is the effect of a reaction against the gross inequalities of the system previously alluded to ; yet from the IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 28 1 fact of its being a deteriorator, apart from its im- practicability, any idea of it should be equally discarded. It is utterly inconsistent with the task and objects of government that it should propose any other effect than an improving one upon the subject. It is evident that the subject is the element of society, and that the existence of society and its development depend upon his labour and character. He should be placed, there- fore, in a position to best exert the former and up- hold the latter, and as this can only be effectually attained by allowing him wide opportunities for his labour and securing him a certain amount of education, freedom, and independence, without which his mind must be degraded, there can be no hesitation in saying that such a twofol end can only be achieved by a general recognition of the supremacy of the people, checking in its con- trol all class interests, and by an acknowledgment of the imperativeness of the distribution of real estates on their descent by death, preventing their concentration for class purposes, with an equal adjustment of the state burthens to the circum- stances of each, accompanied by utter submission to the sacredness of family ties and of individual 282 ON LAND CONCENTRATION AND property justly obtained, which have formed the basis of society from time immemorial, this recog- nition of principles to be followed up by practice. As to the restraints necessary upon the action of persons abusing their power in any condition of life, these should be made to apply especially to the disturbers of the peace and the powerful in their relations with the weak ; and however much the powerful may resent them, as invasions upon their freedom of contract one with the other, they should clearly be adopted under the supreme con- trol for giving definiteness as much as possible to those relations, where there is none by such con- tract, and for absolutely prohibiting contracts obviously unfair. The object which the people would have in the exercise of their supreme control, could only be to adjust matters in their general interests, and freedom of action of all the elements conducing to that end would, as a logical, natural consequence, come immediately into play for every man under it, subject to such restraint only as may be necessary for the protection of the fair interests of others ; so far at least as the appointed Government who should accomplish this adjustment is true and equal to its trusts, and by free action we mean IRRESPONSIBILITY OF POLITICAL POWER. 283 freedom of individual activity, ownership, compe- tition, contracts, and trade. This freedom of action which the supreme con- trol, resting on the broad basis of the people, would confer on each, the further power which through the distribution of nature's resources in the land it would also impart to each, the vast number of those who would thus have by their possessions in the land not only comparative independence, but a similar interest binding them into a widespread union, whose stake in society would compel them to support all measures necessary for order and its good, and the increased force which must be ever developing under such circumstances for that pur- pose, would be, at all events, a permanent security for controlling those holding impracticable opinions, and the enemies of order, and for uniting all sec- tions and classes, far better at all events than any class or any section of society can possess in pre- tending to govern under a merely coercive system. It is evident, from the general yearning of all within society towards the observance of the principles here enumerated, as essential for the due exercise of man's labour and the elevation of his mind, that those principles naturally represent conditions of the original compact co-existing with 284 ON LAND CONCENTRATION, ETC. the formation of society, and which, let others say of it what they please, truly binds all seeking and accepting protection from the State, under the powers delegated to it by the people, to a personal obligation to contribute to that purpose, by aiding in the enactment of such measures as each must know from his conscience or learn by inquiry to be necessary for the maintenance of order, and in conformity with the wants and wishes of the well-dis- posed who would constitute the immense majority of the people ; and the more completely all govern- ing and governed realize in their mind, accept, and apply the principles of the compact, the greater must be the united action and effectiveness of society for abating the anomaly which aifects it, and terminating many of the differences that are so liable to constantly occur within its ranks. APPENDIX. A. Page 49. Adam Smith, in the "Wealth of Nations," states that "The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and con- veniences of life which it annually consumes." " The whole annual produce, if we except the spontaneous production of the earth,* is the effect of productive labour." " Production much depends upon organiza- tion of the labour ; and the number of useful and productive labourers is everywhere in proportion to the quantity of capital stock which is employed in setting those to work, and to the particular way in which it is employed; and wages are the earning of labour, and profit is the earning of the capital stock employed." And further, he explains the foundation of rent thus: "As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, » The words "earth" and "land" must be held here as synonymous. 286 APPENDIX. the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when the land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come so as to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must then pay for the licence to gather them, and he must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces. The portion, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion constitutes the rent of land, and in the price of the greater part of commodities makes a third component part with wages and profit." This theory sets forth plainly three distinct sources of wealth or requisites for its production : first, man's labour ; second, the substance of the earth and its spontaneous energies and produce; and, third, capital stock. The theory of John Stuart Mill gives the same in other words as the requisites for production. He calls them (i) labour; (2) the motive powers of nature ; and (3) capital ; and including in the motive powers both the substance and the spontaneous powers of nature, he calls these the land. The writer is not questioning the correctness of the statement as to these being requisites towards pro- duction ; he only doubts the rank of importance given to each, and would point out that the apparent error in the classification of them, according to their importance, is the effect of a somewhat obscure and confused definition, and that the general result seems to have been a neglect of the main questions affecting the economy of nations ; for let us compare, by a short recapitulation of what we have already stated, the nature of these requisites for APPENDIX. 287 production and their produce respectively with the ex- planations given of them by the economists. We have shown that the earth is a substance endowed with motive powers, ever developing form in its parts by spontaneous action and fixing their position. Labour is an energy in man by means of which he modifies the form and position already given to that substance, and thus makes it the more available for immediate con- sumption, or for the greater exercise of its spontaneous powers in reproduction. Substance and form, growth and motion, combined are, therefore, the essence and produce of the energies of the earth ; whereas, modifica- tion of form and increased motion are all that is pro- duced by labour ; and there is great importance in this modification, especially when applied to make the substance reproductive or better available — that is to say, in making capital stock of these. But here, again, whatever the result may be of this combination, we see the chief of the work is done by nature in the substance; form, and motion it gives ; for in no case of reproduc- tion can labour dispense with allying itself with nature to obtain it. Observe, with reference to Adam Smith's statement, he begins by calling labour a "fund which originally supplies a nation.'' The word "fund" here can only mean formation or original resource, which we have shown to be in the earth ; therefore, at the first step of inquiry, we discover a fault in his definition. Later on in his book, guided by the force of his genius, he, however, rectifies his statement to some extent, and 288 APPENDIX. says, "The whole produce, if we except the spontaneous production of the earth, is the effect of productive labour." The exception is a proper one; but, unfortu- nately here, when the subject of the exception (the spontaneous produce of nature and its power) wants defining, in order to make the nature of both labour and the earth's powers and substance distinct and clear to us, he gives no such definition, and in the course of his book he makes no further prominent mention of the earth's substance and powers, which are evidently the foundation of all supplies, and not labour. From his passing remarks upon the earth's spon- taneous productions is clearly to be implied the con- clusion we have arrived at, viz. that that foundation is the original substance in all things with endowed powers, ever producing fresh form, growth, and disposi- tion of its parts ; and it seems the more extraordinary that, with this admission, Adam Smith should choose in all he says the argument that labour is the foundation. The error in his definition perpetuates itself throughout his book, and that it is an error is proved by his mention of spontaneous produce as an exceptional cause of produce. We have shown where lies the difference between the produce of labour and that of the earth ; but Adam Smith further on makes no real distinction between the two, and, confusing the form and position, which is the only thing that labour gives, with the substance and life, which are purely of the earth, he calls more or less generally all substance, when modified by labour, the produce of labour itself; and when it is stored, he describes it all APPENDIX. 289 as stock, become in every respect the produce of labour, the portion set by for purposes of reproduction being capital stock, all the time omitting mention of the real substance and life in the earth, which has not merely an exceptional share in producing, but is the foundation of capital as well, with this difference, as compared with its spontaneous produce, that there is manifestation of labour in the stock, but none in the spontaneous pro- duce. And there we meet with another apparent incon- sistency in his statements. After saying that capital stock is the produce of labour, he states that labour is actually and absolutely dependent upon the quantity of the stock for employment. Adam Smith diminishes the real importance of the substance and agencies of the earth in ignoring their true nature and work in course of the combination of labour with them ; and it is noticeable that from this imperfect view he never considers the question of the proper appro- priation of that substance and those powers (which are really overwhelming to the mind when contrasted in their effects with the small share labour contributes), in view of the wants they are intended for and the rights those wants create, as a matter seriously affecting their purpose — distribution — while it is of the highest import- ance to that purpose, as well as general productiveness itself, that the appropriation should be made having regard to those objects. And he gives an undue position to capital stock, as really an agency— of itself— ranking with nature's substance and produce; whereas, as we have already said, it is simply a manifestation of form 290 APPENDIX. given to nature's produce by labour for a special use — reproduction — which produce can, moreover, only be made again fertile of results by fresh combinations of labour with the original substances of the earth. Briefly, what suggests itself to the mind after studying Adam Smith, is that labour is not so much an agency residing in an intelligent subject with a will, wants, and rights in reference to certain supplies intended for him by nature, and which, in order to be made profitable, should be exercised and dealt with in the manner most conformable with those rights, wants, and intentions, as an instrument to be made the most of for obtaining productiveness by the few owning the capital stock to which he gives such undue rank ; and that productive- ness once obtained, if left to itself, will always fulfil its purpose — distribution — a conclusion inconsistent with facts. Nor has proper productiveness been obtained under the working of the idea. Nothing is produced in substance, except by nature ; nothing is utilized, except through the combined agency of nature and man. And in the effects of working of those marvellous agencies, their combination, the plenty flowing from their joint operation — if that operation is not restricted — is to be found a complete answer to the formulated opinions of economists as to the dependency of labour upon capital. The infinity of nature's yield, under the hand of man, belies the statement as generally applied that man's labour can be limited in this world. The limitedness can occur only in localities, and the cause of it is almost entirely in the severance of the two APPENDIX. 29 r agencies, through which people are not only deprived of employment, but are without means to emigrate ; and its existence generally shows administrative defects arising from wickedness and error acting contrarily to nature and disturbing its course in those localities. It has been war culminating in acts of plunder, bad govern- ment, and tyranny, that have put limits chiefly to the employment of labour. The painful result of the separa- tion is conspicuous in the loss of form and spirit, and the deterioration of mind and body, which it brings about in its victims. If the world were laid open for labour, where land can be provided by arrangement in localities, or otherwise, it would be seen that the argument of such limitedness amounts to nothing as regards the world, and that it is very considerably exaggerated even in regard to this country, where so many are outcast through the land system, and that its undeveloped minerals, its splendid position for ex- changing produce with other parts, and its other vast resources should be ample, under proper management, for the support of a much larger population than it owns. B. Page 217. It may be alleged that a rent-charge would be an injury to the land, and it is here that it becomes especially necessary to distinguish the owner of the land from the land itself, which by the allegation are absurdly confounded. Let us consider the course that events 293 APPENDIX. would take, by reason of the levying of the rent-charge, in order to understand how the land would not be affected, although the owner might be in some respects inconvenienced by it, and how, on the contrary, the masses must be benefited and the general productive- ness improved. It is clear that all taxes that are not levied directly out of income must be gathered out of produce. The question here is, whether it is best for the land that the tax upon produce should come out of it at its first stage of collection, or later on, when it passes through the hands of labour and trade for utilization and distribution. We would say that the iirst mode of collecting it at the early stage would be the most beneficial for the land as well as for the generality, and for this statement we offer the following explanation. Taxes on articles of trade, which is really only a later stage of labour, must reduce the consumption of them. As consequence, less of the article will be sought, and less produced by labour, for which the raw material is all procured from the land, to make good void caused by consumption than there would be if the tax had not been imposed upon the articles at that stage; and the land, whence all produce is originally procured, would be comparatively idle in the end. But it may be said, " What difference can it make, if the party hitheirto receiving the full rent continues to receive the same ? Would not the proceeds be spent and go to employ labourers, and would not the latter put back equally into circulation the money which they receive for encouragement of the production ? But deduct the APPENDIX. 293 tax from the rent immediately to the extent of the reduction, and in annihilation of the supposed advantage to him, must the landlord's dependent suifer in his wages. Therefore, where is the gain to the dependents, if they are affected in their wages to their loss to the same extent as they would gain by reduced taxation ? " The answer to this is, that the expectation on the part of landlords of making good any reduction of rent by reducing wages would be found delusive, and that the effect of shifting taxation generally from the shoulders of the producing labourer to that of the non-producing land- lord would be to assist the former in his demands for commodities requisite for Ufe, which must of necessity give rise to increased production, which would be out of the land; whereas, by relieving the landowner and leaving him in possession of his full rent, as at present, he (the landowner) would generally be giving opportunity for work only in luxuries for himself — a work, on the other hand, of a totally unproductive character as regards land or anything else. We therefore say that the proposed change would operate to the benefit of the land. Then, again, it may be stated that the margin of profit will cease to afford encouragement to capitalists to lay out capital on the land. In answer to this, we would point out that there would be a large margin of profit, sufficient yet to any capitalist who would hold and cultivate the land by his industry at the same time ; but possibly there would not be the same margin as hitherto to parties who have been holding without cultivating, and the deduction of one-fifth off the rent of the latter 294 APPENDIX. would probably, with other changes, cause many of that class of holder to withdraw what investments they have made in land, and place their money in some other way. But this result would only be to the inconvenience of the landowner, and could not injure the land itself. THE END. PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND EECCLES. 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