RIGHT OF THE ARISTOCRACY TO THE SOIL, CONSIDERED. BY JOHN HOAXES. “ It is not in my power to alien anything appertaining to the crown whereby my state is to subsist .”—King Richard the 1st. LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON, ROYAL EXCHANGE. 1847. THE RIGHT OE THE ARISTOCRACY, As a preliminary to the discussion of the subject announced in the title page, we shall lay down two postulates, to the truth of which we require the reader’s assent. They are the following:— Till one man can shew a better right than another to a thing, it is equally the property of all. Stolen property continues to be stolen property as long as it remains in the possession of the thief; and no lapse of time, sale, or other disposal of it, can cancel the claim of him from whom it was stolen. I do not think I am requiring too much in asking the reader’s assent to these propositions; they seem to my mind so self-evident, that I have placed them in the position of axioms at the threshold of the argument; if, however, any one should feel disposed to call them in question, I can only say, I should feel particular curiosity in hearing them suc¬ cessfully impugned: yet they undoubtedly will sustain the inference I seek to deduce from them; viz., that the soil can¬ not, by the principles of natural justice, be held as property by private persons, but belongs equally to all; and that I, ple¬ beian John Noakes that I am, have really as much right to Woburn Abbey and Russell Square as Francis Russell, com¬ monly called the Duke of Bedford. Francis Russell would indeed be able to shew certain parchments, written in Ger¬ man text and in the verbose, perplexing dialect of the law; from which parchments it would appear that the said Francis 4 Russell, 7th Duke of Bedford, had these lauds given him by John, 6th Duke of Bedford, or that he received them by in¬ alienable entail, which is the same thing as far as the argu¬ ment is concerned. But then arises the challenge,—John, 6th Duke of Bedford, prove your right to this ground; and John the 6th duke would repeat the operations of the former and produce you his parchments engrossed in due form and bequeathing the property to him from his predecessor. "We repeat the challenge, and pursue it for a generation or two till we come to Henry Tudor, that worthy member of society, commonly called Henry Y1TI., and we address him, " Henry Tudor, John Russell says that in 1540 you gave him the goodly estates of the Abbey of Tavistock; pray, Henry Tudor, tell us how came you by the said land; was it yours ?” and Henry Tudor says, “You irreverent scamp, what! dare you thus address an anointed king, or call in question my sovereign right to confiscate and dispose of the lands of Great Britain, as I in my kingly wisdom shall think fit. Am I not sovereign lord of all these lands, king, defender of the faith ?” Not stopping to make peace with his wrathful majesty, here we have the primum mobile; now we are at the fountain of right. In virtue of his kingly prerogative, Henry VIII. confers the soil of England on whom he will. Now I beg leave utterly to deny the power and efficacy of this kingly prerogative; and in impugning the virtue of Tudor’s prerogative thus to appro¬ priate and dispose of God’s elements, we take him of course as a type of a class, and with him include all that order of men known as kings and emperors; and I say that they are not the vicegerents of the Almighty on earth, that they have no divine right, and no man shall make me alter my mind or my speech without shewing a reason. The burden of proof lies with the objector, not with me. You can shew no divine appointment either of the institution of royalty or of the persons of the kings, except in the case of Saul, aud no divine-right man will think of grounding his argument upon that surely. If he should, I must remind him at the risk of appearing to suppose him lamentably ignorant of Scripture History, that the divine appointment of king Saul, and of the order of kings in his person, was made, not as the result of the divine wisdom and goodness, but as a punitive and reluctant grant to a sinful and ignorant prayer of an ignorant people. The order of kings established in Israel, the Deity did confessedly select at different times the occupants of the throne in Israel, but at the first insti¬ tution of royalty, the divine displeasure is recorded against it, and certainly no prerogative or superhuman function of authority, or right in the elements, is delegated by Him to whom belongeth the earth and the fullness thereof; and I contend that for crown gifts of the soil to be valid in virtue of kingly prerogative and divine right, such divine right and kingly prerogative must be proven; and it has not been proven and cannot be. But the more common ground and argument for the kingly right is the power of the sword. It is affirmed to be the law of nations, that the lands of the vanquished should go to the conquering people. It is by the efficacy of this principle that the mass of the aristocracy of this country hold their estates. These meu work not for their bread; no, they have got the country, it is theirs; and before we can break a clod to sow seed corn for our sustenance, we must get their permission and pay them for it. We are free-born Englishmen, it is true, but we must pay them to let us live on the soil of England, unless we mean to perambulate the streets and highways, which are yet left to us, the common right of all, aud which no power of the avaricious landholder can appropriate. These men own England we say; they do no work, no, it would degrade them; but they appropriate to themselves extraor¬ dinary names and titles, make demigods of themselves, styl¬ ing one another, “ Your Lordship/ 5 “ Your Grace/ 5 “ Most noble/ 5 “ Highness/ 5 and live in the utmost excess of wealth and luxury upon what they call their landed property, while the bulk of the people are in straitened circumstances and one eighth or more are actually paupers. The landlords how¬ ever, it must be confessed, are not altogether idle; they do something, they kindly legislate for us. They constitute a third part of the legislature of the country, have a veto upon 6 every measure proposed, and while the common herd of men are at work on plebeian occupations, this order prepares for us an hereditary band of rulers educated not for the shop, or the counting house, or the bar, but for the House of Lords; for guiding and directing the destiny of the country and ruling over its members. That the hopeful heirs to aristocratic domains do always enter the House admirably qualified by • education and abilities to control this country, we will not contend; that the community ought to be exceedingly grateful to them for the kind, patriotic, and disinterested part they take in legislating for the public weal, some people are ill- natured enough to doubt; but the order is generally con¬ sidered most useful as a drag on the wheel to interpose its veto and check anything calculated to advance the common good as opposed to class interest: it is preeminently conserv¬ ative in its spirit, very averse to innovation and the mortal enemy of every effort of a go-a-head tendency. We said that the right of these men to the soil was the right of the sword, that is, the sword of the foreigner, William of Normandy. That gentleman crossed over from Normandy some years ago. viz. in 1066, and with an army landed in Sussex: being opposed on his landing by king Harold, he fought it out, and fighting overcame, and established himself in the monarchy. As he succeeded, he was called king and his authority acknowledged; had he failed, he would have ex¬ piated his sins with his blood as a foreign invader: but he was victor, and by that victory he assumed right in the soil of England and disposed of it at his pleasure, and the most valid and unimpeachable tenure of land of the most noble and ancient families is that which is grounded upon the grants made by the said William. No better title can possibly be possessed, and but a very small proportion can shew so good a one. Now try this right, not by the enactments of any particular king or parliament, but by the principles of natu¬ ral justice, and then will it stand? Is William’s seizure of the lands anything more than the robber’s seizure of the traveller’s money, when he has knocked him on the head and overpowered him? Is might right? In the court 7 of reason will a claim, so grounded, stand? Not for. a moment. But suppose a claim to be traced to an earlier date still, and the land not to have been seized by the power of the sword, but bought and paid for; what then, is not the pos¬ sessor’s tenure valid in reason ? No; for of whom was it ori¬ ginally bought ? Of the man that had appropriated that to which he could prove no right, and sold it. Take for example William Penn’s purchase of land from the North American Indians; William Penn’s descendants and representatives cannot as individuals hold private property in land in virtue of that purchase. Because the North American Indians did not make the ground, it was not their property; they were born on it, they hunted on it, they lived on it, but they had no right to sell it outright, and thereby assume a property in it to the end of time. They had only a life interest in it, as every man has in the soil of his country; but for an exist¬ ing generation or family to sell the soil, is to sell what does not belong to them, and to rob the coming generations of that property in it, to which they for their lives have as much right as their predecessors. And this principle, strange to say, is recognized and admitted in the law by which the aristo¬ cracy is perpetuated in England. By that law every noble¬ man has only a life interest in his estates, and, in consequence, cannot sell them, because the descendants are in like manner entitled to their life interest therein, which of course cannot be preserved if any gambling scoundrel, that may for the time be head of the house, may in a night’s play stake and lose his own interest in the inheritance, and that of his de¬ scendants to all generations. I contend that this principle is sound, and if good for the aristocracy, it is good for all men, as every true principle must be; and if this be true, then I ask how could the North American Indians sell their descendants’ right in the soil to William Penn ? They had no right; the conveyance was invalid, the rights of the future generations were not the property of the preceding, and no sale can be valid. A man might as well claim pro¬ perly in slaves because his grandfather bought them, or their parents, and paid for them. The slaves have a natural inalienable right to liberty, and though their race may have been enslaved for ages, though their owners may have honestly bought them, (if I may be allowed so to speak, that is given a quid pro quo for them,) still the slave cannot be rightfully debarred his inalienable birthright, liberty. And his answer to any remonstrance or argument of this kind, that his owner . did not steal him, but paid for him in honest trade, must be, —“"What is that to ns? see thon to that: I am my own, not your property; and I will have my liberty if I have to pur¬ chase it with my blood," Having said thus much in advocacy of the doctrine by which aristocracy is perpetuated in this country, viz., that each possessor has only a life interest in, and therefore can¬ not sell, the soil; we have to consider nest, in what way the soil could be possessed in the outset as property by any indi¬ vidual of family. And we commence the enquiry by recurring to the first principle we set out with, viz., “ Till one man can prove a better right than another to a thing, it is equally the property of all.” And this principle, when applied to things possessed by their first owners, and not held by gift or purchase, esta¬ blishes the principle that the only private property a man can have are his person and his labour. The ground belongs as much to one as another, and equally to all. We did not make it. No man ever manufactured a particle of dust, or a blade of grass. God made the earth, and it is His. But for whom did He make it, and on whom is it bestowed ? He bestowed it on the common progenitor and representative of us all, Adam. And God said, “Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree bearing seed. Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it.—The earth hath He given to the children of men.” This is the great title deed, the authoritative, valid instrument of conveyance. Here we have the great family parchment by which our family, the common family of man, hold, or are entitled to hold, as their common property, this planet. And this reminds me that although my wife did unfortu¬ nately, in a rummaging crusade through the house, turn out and destroy my family archives, unmindful of their worth, and supposing them to be waste paper, which archives proved me to have been of a most ancient family, an ancestor of mine having lived in the days of the Emperor Theodosius, yet that I have nevertheless as good blood in me as any of your Howards, Percys, or Plantagenets, for we are all from father Adam, and father Adam, in a.m. L, was the rightful lord of the soil; yet not in his private capacity, but as head and representative of the race, and he could not rightfully give away any portion to one son to the exclusion of another, and the families and nations in him represented. There being then no authority or instrument in existence conferring the right of the soil explicitly upon any individuals, and no person being in a condition to prove a natural right to the soil, I contend that it follows inevitably that it is common property. The elements are for all men; earth, air, and water are common, they are the property'of the community, and the community are entitled to reassert their claim. And this inference is confirmed by the grant made to Adam, as the common representative of mankind, as already adduced. But to this it may be objected (though it is but a weak objection, yet as it has been made we will meet it,) that land being waste and wilderness, unoccupied and unclaimed, or even unknown, any one discovering it, and expending his labor on it, to bring it into cultivation and fruitfulness, does thereby acquire a better right than any one else thereto, and that no body being able to prove so good a right as he, it is lawfully his. Now to this we reply, that what is the fruit of the man’s labour is his own, but nothing else: the increased fruitfulness of the soil being wrought by him is his, but the soil itself, not being the work of his hands, cannot by any such operation become his property. What if it were waste, untilled, and unclaimed? The world was not peopled in a day, and if islands remain to this day uninhabited, it does not follow that any adventurer that may light upon them may claim them as his own, and have them put up to the hammer by Mr. George .Robins. They are to be possessed one day by the community that shall people those islands, by generations yet to be born, whose right in them cannot be set aside by any such accident as the landing of a ship’s crew, or planting a flag in the soil. Is it really to be contended seriously, that by my felling a few trees in an uncleared forest, or uncarting a load of gnano on a piece of waste com¬ mon in any part of the world, it is by that act my property to the end of time, to have and to hold, to sell or to dispose of, not for my life, or on lease of any duration, but for ever ? I contend that the land in all such cases, whether culti¬ vated or waste, discovered or unknown, possessed or not, is property, the property not of a noble lord or of an individual, but of a corporation and community, whose property it is as a corporation inalienably; and if through weakness or igno¬ rance, (or in the earlier ages, non-existence,) no claim should have been asserted, yet that the generations to come peopling those lands, are the rightful owners, whose claim cannot be quashed by any transactions in times anterior to their birth. If I lose my watch, and another man find it, and clean it, is my claim to the watch null and his valid, because he cleaned it, and I was not present to claim it ? Certainly not; so neither can a community’s right in the country be neut¬ ralized by the fact that, in a former age, the land beiug waste, it was discovered by a subject of the crown of Spain, appropriated by the king, granted by him to members of his court, whose descendants inherit from them, and become the perpetual lords of the soil. Another objection is, that conceding the equal right of all originally, and the consequent invalid assumption of the land by the few, yet that lapse of time has cured the defect iu the title, and precluded the many from asserting their claim. Now, I quite readily admit the efficacy and justice of a statute of limitation, as applied to the purposes for which it 11 was designed, viz., petty and unjust litigations, the letting claims lay dormant for years, and lulling a party into security or forgetfulness, and then suddenly pouncing upon him in a moment of unpreparedness. The grounds on which such a statute as this rest are that the claimant might have made his claim at any time, and if he suffer a course of years to elapse without doing so, he justly forfeits his claim. This is all very fair and proper as respects petty civil claims: qui sciens prcesens tacet, videiur consentire. But no such principle can apply in the case in discussion-; because the claimants are not an individual hut a community; and because further they have not been in a posi¬ tion to assert their claim, the other side being legally in pos¬ session : aud although the principle of a statute of limitation may, under the circumstances, be just as respects petty litiga¬ tion, yet removed from these circumstances, no such principle is known in reason or can stand by the superior laws of natu¬ ral justice, as that lapse of time will make good a bad title, cancel the rights of the proper owner, and establish the usurper in his usurpation. If by the laws of natural justice this will stand, be good enough to prove it, and tell me what lapse of time is required to effect this wonderful meta¬ morphosis. Others again may contend that the law of the land having so decreed, its decision is final and authoritative. Undoubtedly it is for the regulation of the courts, but there is no authority in any legislature which can vitiate the laws of natural justice, or abrogate the rights of man. What is a legislature ? Only a society of men deputed by society at large to make such arrangements and laws as may be required for the perserva- tion of order, and maintenance of right. And as the mem¬ bers of society seriatim have no right to commit injustice, so neither can their deputies when organized into a government. Government, monarchial or representative, can have no autho¬ rity to make laws except in conformity with the antecedent, and eternal law of right and wrong. If its enactments are in contravention of this, the law of nature cannot succumb 12 to the enactments of man: but the enactments of man must be altered and subordinated to the law of nature. Else slavery is lawful, being the law of the land in many of the States of America. But who in England, who but a slave-driver anywhere, will pretend that there is any rightful binding authority in that law? If the authority is legitimate, it is crime for a slave to liberate himself; he is in conscience, ■not less than by the cow-hide, bound to obedience. So that if anything were wanted to prove that national enactments are of no moral force when opposed to natural rights, we have it here. We have then, as Englishmen, a natural right to parti¬ cipate in the soil of England, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the grants of kings in ancient times, or the enactments of parliaments. And it should be borne in mind, that the royal grants of land in ancient times under the feudal system were, for the most part, associated with the condition that the person to whom the grant was made, should assist the goverment in time of war, and at the accession of every new heir to the estate, a year’s value thereof went into the king’s exchequer for the national use; so that their tenure of land was a different thing from the present absolute and unconditional property therein. And vast tracts of country were formerly left common for pasturage, but have been gradually absorbed into the estates of the neighbouring land¬ lords by the numerous Commons’ Enclosure Bills that have So much for the abstract right of the community to the soil. It may then be inquired how is the community to hold the land, and in what way can it be possessed or cultivated, except as it is private property ? The answer is simple. All we contend for is, that the proceeds of the land should be public property, and this need not interfere with the posses¬ sion of a single tenant, only he pays his rent not to my Lord Duke, but to the National Exchequer, as the land-steward of the nation. Neither would we interfere with the possession 13 of my Lord Duke during his lifetime; we would have respect unto vested interests, and would shew some tenderness even to an invalid possession, if obtained under the forms of law; but at his death let the people resume their property, and put a stop to that inequality and frightful disproportion which now obtains, of some few men possessing vast territories, and gigantic revenues ; counting their year’s income by hundreds of thousands, while a large proportion of the people can barely obtain the means of subsistence; and if this should in any case lead to too abrupt a transition in circumstances, a limited annuity or other solatium might be granted to the next heir. I am no leveller, except as levelling as justice; I am not the advocate of community of property, or of the abolition of gradations in society, for that is inevitable. Is it necessary to say, I respect the rights of property, and most heartily admit that be a man’s wealth what it may, it cannot be touched if he has earned it, and it is lawfully his ? But the landed proprietors have not earned it; the aristo¬ cracy are rich by an inheritance of what was not transmis¬ sible, and we, the people, are justified in requiring a restora¬ tion of our property: nay, more than justified, for if the estate of the nobleman is handed down to his heirs, so is the position of the commonalty; and if waste, neglect, or improper concession on the part of an existing landlord, may constitute unfaithfulness and injustice to his successor, so a concession of our rights to usurpation is unfaithfulness to our posterity. Countrymen, demand your rights for your children’s sake. Now let us .consider whether we can make any use of this discussion, or whether the present tenure is so interwoven with the frame-work of society, as to render it unwise to agitate a question which perhaps could only be carried by a disruption and revolution. Well, supposing it could only be so carried, I do not see that the discussion is closed on that account. It should be recollected, that the progress of all nations has been marked by revolutions. There are occasional crises and convulsive 14 efforts, that, in the order of things, must be gone through. “We have had one or two in our history, and a most wholesome influence they have exercised. We of the present day are much indebted to those refractory barons, who compelled John to sign the Magna Charta. And if Cromwell, John Hampden, and the rest of them, had been unequal to the crisis which came upon them in 1640; if they, fearing a revolution, had yielded to the ship money, to the arbitrary taxation of Charles, to the Star Chamber, aud absolute and unauthorized courts, where should we be now ? But they met the case iu a proper spirit; they were equal to the emergency, and handed down to us our liberties and rights, as we have them this day. So that bad as contention is, it is sometimes right to contend, and a thing ought not at once to be discarded and pronounced bad, because it is revolutionary. And I enquire what is to be done iu case injustice is per¬ petrated and persisted in by government and law? If the ruling power in any country, disregarding its high office and duty to maintain right and resist evil, shall itself become a perpe¬ trator of evil under forms of law, is there no redress ? There is redress for everything. And though there can be no redress in law, and no provision made in any constitution for an emergency which no Government can be supposed to admit, yet it cannot be concluded that there is no remedy. The people must in such a case seek redress for themselves; if they cannot get it in law, they must get it without law. Does this sound seditious? Never mind the sound or the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. There is no divine right in any government on earth; they have no authority per se; whatever authority they have is a deputed authority,—deputed to them by the people for the common good. If they legislate contrary to the common good, and in opposition to justice, there is no moral force or authority in their commands requiring obedience as matter of conscience. In such a case their authority is a usurpation to be resisted by every good man. If this position required authority to sustain it, I could fortify it from the debates in Parliament, 15 on the right of the Portuguese to assert their liberty agaiust a tyrannical government, and from a host of authorities besides. But I have no idea of urging any recourse to violence; thank God we have got such a degree of personal liberty, and of right to free discussion, that grievances wiE be settled now, when the people are in earnest, by the forms of law; and so let this be settled. The position of this country is such as to require some bold decisive measures for its recovery. We are becoming rapidly pauperized. In England and Wales 1 in 8 are paupers,* and if we take Ireland into account the proportion is larger still: no superficial measures, no palliatives will suffice to remedy such a condition as this. Operatives are out of work, because worlds not remunerative; or, if at work, on inadequate wages. Agricultural labourers are paid 7s. and 8s. per week. The profits of trade are small and pre¬ carious. We must have some radical potent change. The pressure of taxation, especially of indirect taxation, affecting prices and ultimately pressing most severely on labour, is so heavy that it can hardly be borne. Proposals are made in some quarters to repudiate the national debt; it is argued that no generation can pledge their descendants to payment of their debts; that if money is borrowed by a Government it must be borrowed on the principle of terminable annuities, which shall expire in the lifetime of the generation borrowing; that what is true of the individual is true of the aggregate; that as a father cannot give bills payable sixty years after date by his progeny, so neither can a Government; and that we are not brought under obligation by any Government so acting. It is contended that borrowing money with no pro¬ vision for the payment of the principal, but of the interest only, and handing down to posterity the legacy of debt, is for the time an easy expedient; but that for such a course to become habitual with any Government, is to create a diffi¬ culty which in time will increase to such a magnitude, that either debtor or creditor must be sacrificed. It is argued, * See Report of the Poor Law Commissioners. 16 that if any , existing generation, not being in debt, cannot meet its expences, bow is the next to meet theirs, with the disadvantage of inheriting then- predecessors’ liabilities? And the inference deduced from this, is, that we are not bound, and may repudiate.* Now I say that these are very sound principles to act upon for the future, and they deserve an extensive promulgation; and if their dissemination would lead to any scheme for commuting this interminable debt into a terminable annuity, I should be very glad of it. But don’t repudiate the debt; preserve the honour of England immacu¬ late. Taxation is indeed frightfully heavy; but let the nation resume its right in the soil, and labour will be set free from the incubus which is on it, and the land tvould pay the tax. All that cumbersome, restrictive, and paralyzing apparatus of taxes on commodities, customs and excise, tampering with prices, putting a veto upon the interchange of productions, and doing a thousand injuries indirectly while it brings money into the Exchequer, all this machinery may be broken up and dispensed with. Observe the bad working of these laws. A bottle of French wine may be purchased for 5 d .; well, I and a hundred others would be very glad to purchase; but a duty of 3s. 6 d. is put on it, and 95 out of the 100 can’t afford to buy it. So that while 5 men by this machinery contribute to the revenue, 95 are forbidden to purchase, and are debarred a reasonable luxury, without bettering the revenue one penny. "Why not assess me by direct taxation the sum due to the Government, and leave me free to purchase where I like ? Indirect taxation is preferred by the law-makers, notwith¬ standing all the indirect and gratuitous evil it effects as in the above instance; by it nobody sees what he pays to the revenue, by it the law-makers and the wealthy throw the great bulk of the taxation on the working classes; the commonest articles of use, of which each labourer consumes more in pro¬ portion than any nobleman, contributing the bulk of the re¬ venue. It may also happen that if the ingredients of any manufactured goods are taxed, either in importation or manu- * See Doubleday's Financial History of England; Effingham Wilson. 17 facture, with the intention of those taxes being added to the price of the goods, that when the said goods are brought into the market of nations, our manufacturers must meet the price of their neighbours, and say nothing about these taxes, but pay them out of their own pockets or their operatives ? Make the land the people’s, and by its proceeds support the Gov¬ ernment, and all this will be done away with. Now, to my own mind, the case is so clear that no right can be proven to the soil as private property, that my convic¬ tion of the truth of the principle could not be strengthened by the authority of names or precedents. But knowing what influence these exert on men’s minds generally, I will adduce a few authorities in support of my position. When William the Norman took this country, he assumed the existing crown lands, and added thereto such as he con¬ sidered forfeited by his opponents. He made a survey of the whole country, and recorded the results in Doomsday Book ; from which it will be seen that very extensive possessions in every county were held by him, and called Terra Regis. Sir John Fortescue says, “ Nere hand to a fifth part of his realme above the possessions of the chirche.” “ There were appro¬ priated to the crown 1422 manors or lordships, besides lands and farms in Middlesex, Shropshire, and Rutlandshire, over and abovewhich there were quit rents, insomuch that Ordericus Vitalis says William I. had coming in £1061:10: 1| per diem of sterling money, which, the value of money in those days considered, was a prodigious income.* “By this accompt it appears that the founder of our present government left to succeeding kings a fair inheritance, sufficient to maintain * The pound then consisted of a pound weight of silver j four ounces of silver are now coined into one pound and eight-pence; it was therefore equal to £1,162,000 per annum. Furthermore, such was the value of money in its power to purchase, that a sheep was sold for a shilling, and other things in proportion, to such an extent, that it is supposed that any given weight of silver should be multiplied by 5, to express its present value, this would make the revenue £5,800,000 per annum. The crown lands in 1846 yielded £441,583! 18 their dignity at home, and capable to defend the realm against invasion from abroad.”* This land William and his successors held, not as private patrimony, but in virtue of their office, and the proceeds went to the public service. If the ting were nominally the owner, it was virtually public property, for it stood to the account of the people in lieu of taxes. To alienate it, Sir Robert Cotton says, was considered impious by our forefathers. This was a good principle, but though avowed at times, it was at other times repudiated, or at least departed from. For grants of land have been made in almost every reign notwithstanding. William Rufus alienated the crown lands profusely, and was compelled to resume his own grants. Henry II. resumed the crown lands granted by Stephen, and that when they had got into powerful hands. Richard I., to carry on his crusade in the Holy Land, sold several parcels of the crown lands. But after his second coronation at Winchester, he resumed all that he had sold, "alleging that it was not in his power to alien anything ap¬ pertaining to the same, whereby his state was to subsist.” Grafton says, “ That after his second coronation he called a parliament, by the authority whereof he resumed again all patents, annuities, fees, and other grants, before his voyage by him sold and granted, and caused the parties to be con¬ tented with such revenues and profits as they had received of the said offices or lands, in the time of his absence, and spared not for any sufficiency of writing that by him before was made.” Richard was succeeded by John. John made grants of the crown lands; but in the next reign, Henry III., they were revoked. Knyghton says, " Omnes alknigence ejecti erant de Anglia et omnia castilla qua Rea Johannes donaverat et tradiderat in custodiamalienigenanimfuerunt restitutain manu regis.” t In the reign of Edward II., it was enacted by parliament that the crown revenue should not be alienated. Similar acts are made by Richard II., and renewed by Henry IV., * Dr. D’Avenant on Resumptions, f Quoted from D’Avenant on Resumptions. 19 In the 28th Henry VI., the Commons petition the king to resume grants made, and that the crown possessions “may abide to you youre heires and successours in perpetuite to the same end and effecte and noon other, with such peines and punishments to be sette thereupon by youre wise discretions, that noone of youre lieges in tyme to come attempt the con- trarie thereof, or accept any parcel of them, so ordained, for the seid provisions.” Resp. “ The kyng by the advyse and assent of the lords spirituelx and temporelx in this pre¬ sent parlemant assembled, and by the auctoritie of the same, agreetk to this petition of resumption, and the same accepteth and establisheth.” Similar petition and act is passed by Edward IV. Dr. D’Avenant thus briefly sums up the several resump¬ tions up to Henry VIII. A resumption was made by William Rufus. A resumption „ Henry I. A resumption agreed to by King Stephen. „ made by Henry II. „ „ Richard I. „ „ Edward II. „ „ Richard II. „ „ Henry IV. Three resumptions made by Henry V. Four resumptions ., Edward IV. One general act, and other particular acts of resumption, in the reign of Henry VII. An act of resumption of divers offices, annuities and other things, in the reign of Henry VIII. Prom which facts Dr. Davenant deduces, “That the peo¬ ple of England have in no age thought it reasonable that the crown revenue should be alienated.” “That not only under the reigns of weak and unfortunate princes, but when there have been on the throne martial and active kings, this nation has all along insisted upon resumptions.... No resumption seems to have been made in the reign of Elizabeth, but the reason why nothing of that nature should be done in her reign is very obvious; her father had alienated from the crown n 2 20 a great part of the abbey lands, and it was a strong security to the Protestant religion and interest that those estates should remain in the hands of private persons.” A resumption was contemplated by James I. In the time of Charles II., we find in the journals of the House of Commons, Martis 22, die Maii, 1660. “ A bill for making void of grants made since May, 1642, of titles of honour, manors, lands, tenements, and hereditaments, passed under several great seals by the late King Charles, or by the king's majesty that now is, or any other great seal, was this day read the second time, and upon the question, committed, &c.” “ And as a mark that these alienations of the crown revenue were at all times distasteful to the people of England; and to shew that the House of Commons desired, that a new prince should betimes know the nation’s sense in this matter, we shall produce the following resolves of that Parliament which restored King Charles.” " Martis 4 die Sept. 1660. “Resolved that this House doth agree with the Commons that a bill be brought in for settling the lands of the crown so as that no grant of the inheritance shall be good in law, nor any lease for more than 3 lives, or 31 years.” “Finally, for their satisfaction who pretend resumptions are against the fundamentals of English law, we shall produce the opinion of a venerable and learned lawyer on this point; it is taken out of a book written by Sir John Fortescue, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, in the reign of Henry VI. The MS. is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, it is intitled, “Sir John Fortescue’s Treatise de Dominio Regali.” “The kyng, our souveraign lord, had by times sethen be reyned upon us lyvelood, in lordshipps, londs, tenements and rents, nere hand to the value of the fifth part of his realme, above the possessions of the chirche.” He then goes on to shew that portions of the crown land had been given away; and argues that such as had been bestowed above the merits of the suitors should be “reformyd,” and that others should be commuted into offices, or grants of money. “ So that his 21 highnesae wol wel establish the same lyvelood then remayn- yng to abide perpetually to his crown, without translatyng thereof to any other use. For, when that schal happen here¬ after to be given hytte schal nede that his Commons be chargyd with a newe subsidye, and be alwaye kept in povertie.” Dr. D’Avenant then goes into a history of ministers im¬ peached for procuring grauts, which, however, I do not think it necessary here to go into. The reader can consult the original work if he pleases. It is only right however to state, that D’Avenant, writing in the reign of George I., contended only for the resumption of grants made out of the estates forfeited in the Irish rebellion of 1690. He was of opinion that Charles the Second’s grants had been held too long to be revoked; that to do so after an interval of three reigns would produce more confusion than profit: and we should be disposed to agree with him, if the lands so resumed were to be held on the same footing as before, and granted away by another sovereign. The estates forfeited in the Irish rebellion by the adhe¬ rents of James II., were numerous in every county. There is an enumeration of the estates so forfeited in “ Report of the Commissioners appointed by the Parliament of England to take cognizance of the properties that were confiscated upon the Irish who were concerned in the Rebellion of 1688, to the honourable House of Commons. December 15th, 1690.” From this* Report it appears that there were one million sixty thousand seven hundred and ninety acres confiscated; and in reference to this confiscation, the Com¬ mons pray that the lands may not be alienated from the crown by grants, and the king replies, (January 5th, 1690,) “ I think it meet to assure you, that none of the confiscated estates either in England or Ireland shall be disposed of, until this affair be regulated by the parliament, in such manner as will be approved of by them.” Notwithstanding this, grants were made, and on the 18th * Quoted from the History of Ireland. Translated from the French of the Abbe Mac Geoghegan,' by Patrick O’Kelly, Esq. of January, 1699, the House resolves "that those by whose advice the confiscated estates in Ireland have been given to individuals, and who have been the cause of granting these gifts, have involved the nation in heavy debts, and made it necessary to lay heavy taxes on the people. That they have been gnilty of a crime which reflects considerable disgrace upon the king; that the officers, or those who have been instrumental in the confering of those grants, are guilty in the highest degree, of having betrayed the confidence that was reposed in them.” From the forecited authorities, the reader will perceive that anciently the expenses of the state were chiefly defrayed from the crown lands, which were on that account public property. They did not belong to the king as private patri¬ mony, but officially, and for the public service; that it was accounted impious to alienate them, that they were however alienated by gift or sale, but that nevertheless resumption has been made in almost every reign up to Charles II., on the ground that the inheritance could not be alienated from the crown, that is the public. And although we are not ac¬ quainted with any official authority or precedent for carrying out the doctrine to the extent here contended for, we hold it to be no small argument that we have it to the extent cited. And in an assembly of landowners, we do not expect to meet with anything more. Do you ask is this discussion timely ? Do you think the land owners are too firmly seated ever to be unseated? or if ever, that the discussion is premature ? I answer, we make it timely by discussing it. It will never become timely by the mere lapse of time; it must be discussed and agitated, and discuss it when you may, it will be a stormy discussion. "We don’t suppose people will hear their title to what they consider their own, questioned, without anger, and in many cases abuse and imprecation. But it is as timely now, as it is likely of itself to be, and if it gets much agitated, you will find it much more timely in the course of a few years. I need not say that I am not the first to advocate the doctrine, that the elements are not vendible, and cannot be possessed as pri- vate property, but are God's gifts to the earth’s inhabitants generally. It is an opinion which I have found not uncom¬ monly entertained by men, on reflection, though not very fre¬ quently expressed. Unless I mistake the times, there is pretty generally a lurking, hidden notion, that the right to land won't bear investigation. And this lurking notion manifests itself occasionally. You may see it in the spirit in which the Duke of Sutherland's refusal to grant sites for building to the Free Church of Scotland was met. What was said to His Grace ? —There was a good deal of very significant muttering of this kind—“Better concede; take care how you provoke enquiries into your right either to give or withhold permission to build on the land. If you are wise, you will forbear.” Significant hints of this kind were pretty general; so in reference to the conduct of the House of Lords on the Poor Law for Ireland. When that august and disinterested body of legis¬ lators had negatived the Poor Law as proposed by the other House, what was the general sense entertained of their con¬ duct, and the tenor of remarks made thereupon? What said the Times newspaper? That their proceedings were unparalleled in the history of the most corrupt aristocracies. They said the land was for the people, not for the landlords, that if the alternative were proposed, that the landed interest must be ruined, or the people be starved, perish the landed interest, and let us return to first principles of property. The Times is a journal ,—a publication for to-day; it is as such confined to what is practicable to-day, or under existing cir¬ cumstances. A newspaper cannot argue for a case which would be considered by a multitude of men insane and imprac¬ ticable, and which could not be carried within a half century perhaps. So neither could any existing ministry, or any one in a situation of eminence and responsibility. Such projects must be argued ah infra; and from the insignificant and the low, truth must work its way upward. It is not the fashion, nor the order of things for Government to educate the people, but for the people to educate the Government. You have this idea expressed by a member of the Government, Mr. Macaulay. He says, in one of his essays, that however merit- 24 orious a cause may be, Government cannot espouse it, unless the condition of parties is such as shall enable them to carry it. Else the executive is beaten and obnoxious to a suspicion of weakness. Private members of parliament, he says, should take the conduct of such matters during their minority, and by fostering care, and continuous agitation bring them on, until they have attained snch a degree of popularity and prac¬ ticability, that a Government may adopt them. The same thing is true in a minor degree of the private member of Par¬ liament. He requires a measure to be possessed of a certain degree of popularity and practicability before he will espouse its cause. So with the Daily Press. There are beginners, forwarders, and finishers. The obscure may begin, the respect¬ able forward, and the authorities will finish it. Scouts and pioneers must be sent out first, and prepare the way for the passage of the main body. Difficulties as great as this have been accomplished in his¬ tory, when the people have resolved upon surmounting them. At the time of the re-building of Jerusalem, under Nehemiah, the Jews were in great difficulty by reason of debts, mort¬ gages, and the unequal distribution of property. “ And there was a great cry of the people and their wives against their brethren the Jews. For there were that said, We, our sons and daughters, are many: therefore we take up corn for them, that we may eat, and live. Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands,- vineyards, and houses, that we might buy com, because of the dearth. There were also that said, We have borrowed money for the king’s tribute, and that upon onr lands and vineyards. Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards.” What was done under these circumstances ? The lands were restored. "Audi was very angry when I heard their cry and these words. Then I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the nobles , and the rulers, and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. And I set a great assembly against them. And I said to them, We after our ability have re¬ deemed our brethren the Jews, which were sold unto the heathen; and will ye even sell your brethren ? or shall they be sold unto us ? Then held they their peace, and found nothing to answer. Also I said, It is not good that ye do: ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the heathen our enemies ? I likewise, and my brethren, and my servants, might exact of them money and corn : I pray you, let us leave off this usury. Restore, I pray you, to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their oliveyards, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine, and the oil, that ve exact of them. Then said they, We will restore them, and will require nothing of them; so will we do as thou sayest. Then I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise. Also I shook my lap, and said, So God shake out every man from his house, and from his labour, that performeth not this promise, even thus be he shaken out, and emptied. And all the congre¬ gation said, Amen, and praised the Lord. And the people did according to this promise.” In conclusion, we will briefly sum up what we have said. 1. Originally no right can be proven to the soil as private property; that it thereupon follows, not that it is nobody’s, and may therefore be appropriated without wronging any one, but that it is public property. That this conclusion is further fortified by the grant of the earth (the only valid one) made by the Almighty to Adam and his descendants, to the exclusion of none of them. 2. That no generation has more than a life interest in the soil, that therefore it does not admit of being sold, as thereby the existing holder would assume right in it to the end of time, and rob the coming generations of their rights in the same. 3. That this right of every generation, and of every member of it, to participation in the soil, cannot be set aside 26 by kingly prerogative, by parliamentary enactments, by sale or purchase, or be considered lapsed by reason of non-assertion of this right, through ignorance or inability. 4. This principle, or something like it, has been asserted in this country from the time of William the Conqueror; viz., that a large portion of the country "nere upon a fifth above the estates of the chirche,” was held by William as crown property for the public servicethat to alienate it “ was considered impiousthat nevertheless it has often been alienated; that it has also often been resumed after one or two lives, or a series of years, the land being inalienable from the crown, for the public service. 5. That the people have therefore now a right to the soil, and are justified in asserting it. That the difficulty of changing the tenure of the soil would be immense, but not greater than has been before surmounted by this nation and by others. That the interests of the country, and of posterity, require that no one class should be enriched and ennobled, at the spoliation or ruin of the rest. Fellow countrymen, fellow plebeians, I commend this matter to your consideration. If I have argued against truth and justice, let my reasoning be disproved, and censured as it deserves. If the principles here contended for are sound and cannot he overthrown, then receive them, and promul¬ gate them. Agitate that the elements are common, and demand that all lands, at the decease of their present pro¬ prietors, titled or untitled, revert to the State as the land- steward of the nation, the proprietorship resting in you, but the immediate tenure being as at present. Industry will then be liberated from the taxation under which it groans, and the land will bear it. If the county of Sutherland may be owned by a single person, so may the Thames, or the At¬ lantic Ocean. And though you should be met with the reply that land has been held as private property from time immemorial, say that wrong has been perpetrated from time immemorial. If they say, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, possessed the soil, and the divine record takes cognizance of it, say that the Bible in an equal degree takes cognizance of slavery, of absolute monarchy, and of poly¬ gamy. It makes record of the proceedings of Ahasuerus, of Darius, and of Belshazzar, at whose fiat a man, a family, or a race, was consigned to destruction, and the inspired messengers hold communication with these men without cen¬ suring slavery, or absolute monarchy; yet we know that slavery, absolute monarchy, and polygamy, are all unlawful. But the Bible is not a text book on politics, or on social economy. It is a spiritual book; it has reference to the in¬ dividual in his relation to his Maker, and it supplies him with the principles of his actions towards men; but the details, and the carrying out of these principles into the forms of social or civil economy, these it leaves to the man’s own resources. The Deity deals with men as men, not as chil¬ dren unable to quit the apron strings. The world has been allowed gradually to grow and develop itself; and in reference to the taciturnity of Scripture on all matters not requiring divine revelation, that taciturnity cannot be interpreted into acquiescence, for that would justify many confessed evils, but every matter must be judged by its merits. Kecollect that antiquity confers a charm upon what is intrinsically good, it develops and mellows its latent properties; but these proper¬ ties the thing must have before they can be developed or mel¬ lowed. Old wine is good; but old mud is not. Trace the history of any family in the peerage, and see why they were ennobled, and what was the service they rendered, that they should be perpetual owners of the soil. Take the house of Bedford for example. John Russell, a plain gentlemen, residing near Bridport, county of Dorset, obtained a favourable introduction to court by a piece of good fortune. The Arch-duke, Philip of Austria, having encountered a violent hurricane in his passage from Flanders to Spain, was driven into Weymouth, where he landed, and was hospitably received by Sir Thomas Trenchard, a gentleman of the neighbourhood. Sir Thomas Trenchard ap¬ prized the court of the circumstance, and in the interim, while waiting for instructions what course to adopt, lie invited-his 28 cousin Mr. Russell, to wait upon the Prince. Mr. Russell proved so agreeable a companion, that the Arch-duke desired him to accompany him to “Windsor. He was there presented to the king, Henry VII., who likewise was so well pleased with Mr. Russell, that he retained him as one of the gentlemen of the privy chamber. Being subsequently a companion of the Prince, he so far ingratiated himself into young Tudor’s favour, that he got elevated to the peerage, under the title of Baron Russell, of Cheyneys. In the nest year, 1540, when the church lands were seized, Henry gave his favourite the Abbey of Tavistock, with the extensive possessions be¬ longing thereto. In the next reign, Russell’s star being still in the ascendant, young Edward, not sixteen, gave him the monastery of Woburn, and made him an earl. In Charles the Second’s time, William, the fifth earl, was made Duke of Bedford. -■ So says Burke’s Peerage. And this is the history of one of the oldest and most respectable houses of the aristocracy. Mr. John Russell, who proved so entertaining a com¬ panion to the Arch-duke of Austria, was no doubt a very pleasant fellow, but for my part I cannot see why for all that the soil of our country is to be vested in him and his heirs for ever. Ex mo disce omn.es. Now we are on the subject of the confiscation of the church lands by Henry VDI., let me advise the reader who desires further information on that subject, to consult Cobielfs History of the Reformation. Mr. Cobbett is not altogether the author I should choose to teach me the history of the Reformation; at the same time his book is in many respects an admirable work; and any man desirous of ac¬ quainting himself with all the causes and agents that were at work in the attainment of that object, should study Cobbett as well as D’Aubigne. Mr. Cobbett gives a list of all abbeys and lands confiscated by Henry VHL, with a description of the nature of the foundation, the name of the founder, the estimated yearly value at the time of the confiscation, the (then) present value according to the change in the value of 29 money, by what king or queen it was granted away, and to whom it was granted. For example: “At Woburn. A Cistercian Abbey, founded near this place, in the year 1145, by Hugh de Bolebec; valued at £430:13:11|; now worth £8,613:19:2; granted 1 Edward VI., to John, Lord Russell.” “At Abingdon. Here was an Abbey of Benedictine monks, 500 in number, in the time of the ancient Britons, where Constantine the Great is said to have been educated; it was destroyed by the Danes, a.d. 955, but afterwards re¬ built by the Abbot Ethelwold through the bounty of King Edred and King Edgar. Valued, at the dissolution, at £2,042 : 2 : yearly; now worth £40,842 :14 : 2; granted 1 Edward VI. to Sir Thomas Seimor, and 5 Edward VI. to Sir Thomas Wroth.” “At Reading, In the year 1121, Henry I. founded here an Abbey for 200 Benedictine monks; income at the disso¬ lution £2,116 : 3 : 9|; now worth £42,323; 15 :10; granted 4 Edward VI. to Edward, Duke of Somerset.” “At Thorney, Cambridgeshire. A Benedictine Abbey, founded by the first Abbot of Peterborough as early as the time of St. Etheldreda; yearly value £508 :12 : 5; now worth £10,172 : 8 : 4; granted 3 Edward VI. to John, Earl of Bedford.” “At Winchester. Wykeham College, founded by the munificent prelate William of Wykeham, 1387, outside the city to the southward; valued at £638 : 8 : 7 yearly; now worth £12,788.” “ St. Cross Hospital, founded, south-west of the town, by Henry le Blois, Bishop of Winchester, in the year 1132, for the whole maintenance of 13 poor brethren in lodging, cloth¬ ing and diet, and for dining 100 poor persons every day. In the year 1185, Richard, Bishop of Winchester, made provi¬ sion for dining another 100 poor persons every day; and in the time of Henry VI., Cardinal Beaufort made additional provisions for a rector, two chaplains, 35 poor men, and 3 poor women. Value, at the dissolution, £184 : 4 : 2 yearly; now worth £3,684 : 3 : 4.” “At Winteney. A Cistercian Nunnery, founded in the time of William the Conqueror, by the son of Peter Jeffrey ; - valued at £59 :1 yearly; now worth £1,181; granted'30 Heniy Alii, to Bichard Hill, Esq., Seqeant of the King’s Cellar.” ' There are about two hundred pages of close print filled with'a bare list of pieces of once, public property , now worth from £100 to upwards of £50,000 a year each! I beg you to hear in mind, that this was public property. The founders of all these houses, endowed them for the public benefit; by the church property the poor were maintained, as well as the existing religious establishment. The very word hospital has now lost its meaning as a place of hospitality, and has come to mean an infirmary. If these religious houses had become sinks of iniquity, as their destroyers allege, they should have been purged, and the advantages intended by the founders perpetuated to the community, and not parcelled out to in¬ crease the already enormous possessions of the aristocracy. We contend indeed that the founders of these endowments had no right to bequeath the soil, but if private right in land is to be acknowledged, let that right at least he enforced on principles of equity. But it is to this spoliation of public property, that the aristocracy are in a great degree indebted for their possessions. What claim has an order so enriched upon our veneration? Their number is small. There are little more than 400 peers, and almost all the great offices in the state are in their possession, besides the chief part of the land. Talk of old families and noble blood, why in the year 1847 we are all of old families, and as for blood, four hun¬ dred cheesemongers are of nobler, as every one who has taken the trouble to enquire into the history of the aristocracy must he aware of. The original horde that came over with William the Conqueror was a horde of vagabond adventurers, —mercenaries collected from all parts of Europe by the hope of plunder,—and of all classes of men, certainly none is so stained with plunder and with blood. “Let the English people, when they hear of high blood, recollect the innocent blood of their fathers on which it fattened, and the spawn 31 of miscellaneous, nameless, and lawless adventurers, from whom it really flows.”* Are these thy gods, 0 Israel? Away with all flunkeyism. If a man does his duty and acts uprightly in the station in which he was born, he is worthy of all honor, be he a duke or a dustman. But why stand in awe of hereditary rank, of mere names and sounds, which nobody knows the meaning of? What is a duke or an earl ? Some people look so grave at seeing the pretensions of these men investigated, that you might suppose it were nothing short of sacrilege or blas¬ phemy to look a duke in the face, and tell him notwithstand¬ ing his dukedom he is only a man. But it is a morbid rever-, ence, a senile debasement. John Bright has accurately de¬ scribed it"There is one thing which, above all, the'people ' should get rid of, namely, their reverence for even the worth- , less portion of the aristocracy. It is a false and worthless idolatry—a bowing down to Baal. I reverence and respect the laws when they are the embodiment of just principles; but I cannot countenance the reverence paid by the people to those who oppress, grind them down, and scourge them. I hope the day will arrive when they will throw off the burdens with .. which they are oppressed by this aristocracy, and stand forth the bravest, the freest, and the most virtuous people on the face of the earth.”f I think people are not unprepared for this discussion; • and it is marvellous with what rapidity opinions of this des¬ cription will sometimes propagate themselves by a course like this I am pursuing, if they are sound, and there is a smouldering and undeveloped disposition to entertain them. And if the operatives and intelligent men in the North take it up heartily, and work it, we may soon have a million of men, supposing that they have a share in the world they live in, and insisting upon participating it. And when a million of men insist upon a thing, it will meet with some respect. * The Aristocracy of England, by John Hampden, jun.,—a book that should be read by every sensible person, f Speech of John Bright, Esq., at Covent Garden, Feb. 27, 1844. 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