The first deduction he makes from this "first principle"
is the equal right to life and personal liberty, and the
second, the equal right to the use of the earth.
This first deduction he treats briefly in Chapter VIII,
"The Rights of Life and Personal Liberty," saying, "These
are such evident corollaries from our first principle as
scarcely to need a separate statement."
The second deduction, only next in importance to the
rights to life and personal liberty, and indeed involved in
them, he treats at length in a chapter which I give in
full:
Chapter IX — The Right to the Use of
the Earth
§ 1. Given a race of beings having
like claims to pursue the objects of their desires; given
a world adapted to the gratification of those desires
— a world into which such beings are similarly born
— and it unavoidably follows that they have equal
rights to the use of this world. For if each of them "has
freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes
not the equal freedom of any other," then each of them is
free to use the earth for the satisfaction of his wants,
provided he allows all others the same liberty. And
conversely, it is manifest that no one, or part of them,
may use the earth in such a way as to prevent the rest
from similarly using it; seeing that to do this is to
assume greater freedom than the rest, and consequently to
break the law.
§ 2. Equity, therefore, does not
permit property in land. For if one portion of the
earth's surface may justly become the possession of an
individual and may be held by him for his sole use and
benefit as a thing to which he has an exclusive right,
then other portions of the earth's surface may be so
held; and eventually the whole of the earth's surface may
be so held, and our planet may thus lapse altogether into
private hands. Observe now the dilemma to which this
leads. Supposing the entire habitable globe to be so
enclosed, it follows that if the landowners have a valid
right to its surface, all who are not landowners have no
right at all to its surface. Hence, such can exist on the
earth by sufferance only. They are all trespassers. Save
by the permission of the lords of the soil, they can have
no room for the soles of their feet. Nay, should the
others think fit to deny them a resting place, these
landless men might equitably be expelled from the earth
altogether. If, then, the assumption that land can be
held as property involves that the whole globe may become
the private domain of a part of its inhabitants; and if,
by consequence, the rest of its inhabitants can then
exercise their faculties – can then exist even
– only by consent of the landowners, it is manifest
that an exclusive possession of the soil necessitates an
infringement of the law of equal freedom. For men who
cannot "live and move and have their being" without the
leave of others cannot be equally free with those
others.
§ 3. Passing from the consideration
of the possible to that of the actual, we find yet
further reason to deny the rectitude of property in land.
It can never be pretended that the existing titles to
such property are legitimate. Should anyone think so, let
him look in the chronicles. Violence, fraud, the
prerogative of force, the claims of superior cunning
– these are the sources to which those titles may
be traced. The original deeds were written with the sword
rather than with the pen: not lawyers, but soldiers, were
the conveyancers; blows were the current coin given in
payment; and for seals, blood was used in preference to
wax. Could valid claims be thus constituted? Hardly. And
if not, what becomes of the pretensions of all subsequent
holders of estates so obtained? Does sale or bequest
generate a right where it did not previously exist? Would
the original claimants be nonsuited at the bar of reason
because the thing stolen from them had changed hands?
Certainly not. And if one act of transfer can give no
title, can many? No; though nothing be multiplied
forever, it will not produce one. Even the law recognizes
this principle. An existing holder must, if called upon,
substantiate the claims of those from whom he purchased
or inherited his property; and any flaw in the original
parchment, even though the property should have had a
score of intermediate owners, quashes his right.
"But Time," say some, "is a great
legalizer. Immemorial possession must be taken to
constitute a legitimate claim. That which has been held
from age to age as private property, and has been bought
and sold as such, must now be considered as irrevocably
belonging to individuals." To which proposition a willing
assent shall be given when its propounders can assign it
a definite meaning. To do this, however, they must find
satisfactory answers to such questions as: How long does
it take for what was originally a wrong to grow into a
right? At what rate per annum do invalid claims become
valid? If a title gets perfect in a thousand years, how
much more than perfect will it be in two thousand years?
– and so forth. For the solution of which they will
require a new calculus.
Whether it may be expedient to admit
claims of certain standing is not the point. We have here
nothing to do with considerations of conventional
privilege or legislative convenience. We have simply to
inquire what is the verdict given by pure equity in the
matter. And this verdict enjoins a protest against every
existing pretension to the individual possession of the
soil, and dictates the assertion that the right of
mankind at large to the earth's surface is still valid,
all deeds, customs, and laws notwithstanding.
§ 4. Not only have present land
tenures an indefensible origin, but it is impossible to
discover any mode in which land can become private
property. Cultivation is commonly considered to give a
legitimate title. He who has reclaimed a tract of land
from its primitive wildness is supposed to have thereby
made it his own. But if his right is disputed, by what
system of logic can he vindicate it? Let us listen a
moment to his pleadings.
"Hallo, you, sir," cries the cosmopolite
to some backwoodsman smoking at the door of his shanty,
"by what authority do you take possession of these acres
that you have cleared, round which you have put up a
snake fence and on which you have built this log
house?"
"By what authority? I squatted here
because there was no one to say nay – because I was
as much at liberty to do so as any other man. Besides,
now that I have cut down the wood and plowed and cropped
the ground, this farm is more mine than yours or
anybody's, and I mean to keep it."
"Ay, so you all say. But I do not yet see
how you have substantiated your claim. When you came here
you found the land producing trees – sugar maples,
perhaps; or maybe it was covered with prairie grass and
wild strawberries. Well, instead of these you made it
yield wheat, or maize, or tobacco. Now I want to
understand how, by exterminating one set of plants and
making the soil bear another set in their place, you have
constituted yourself lord of this soil for all succeeding
time."
"Oh, those natural products which I
destroyed were of little or no use; whereas I caused the
earth to bring forth things good for food – things
that help to give life and happiness."
"Still you have not shown why such a
process makes the portion of earth you have so modified
yours. What is it that you have done? You have turned
over the soil to a few inches in depth with a spade or a
plow; you have scattered over this prepared surface a few
seeds; and you have gathered the fruits which the sun,
rain, and air helped the soil to produce. Just tell me,
if you please, by what magic have these acts made you
sole owner of that vast mass of matter, having for its
base the surface of your estate and for its apex the
center of the globe? All of which it appears you would
monopolize to yourself and your descendants forever."
"Well, if it isn't mine, whose is it? I
have dispossessed nobody. When I crossed the Mississippi
yonder I found nothing but the silent woods. If someone
else had settled here and made this clearing, he would
have had as good a right to the location as I have. I
have done nothing but what any other person was at
liberty to do had he come before me. While they were
unreclaimed, these lands belonged to all men – as
much to one as to another – and they are now mine
simply because I was the first to discover and improve
them."
"You say truly when you say that 'while
they were unreclaimed these lands belonged to all men.'
And it is my duty to tell you that they belong to all men
still, and that your 'improvements,' as you call them,
cannot vitiate the claim of all men. You may plow and
harrow, and sow and reap; you may turn over the soil as
often as you like; but all your manipulations will fail
to make that soil yours, which was not yours to begin
with. Let me put a case. Suppose now that in the course
of your wanderings you come upon an empty house, which in
spite of its dilapidated state takes your fancy; suppose
that with the intention of making it your abode you
expend much time and trouble in repairing it – that
you paint and paper and whitewash, and at considerable
cost bring it into a habitable state. Suppose further
that on some fatal day a stranger is announced who turns
out to be the heir to whom this house has been
bequeathed, and that this professed heir is prepared with
all the necessary proofs of his identity; what becomes of
your improvements? Do they give you a valid title to the
house? Do they quash the title of the original
claimant?"
"No."
"Neither, then, do your pioneering
operations give you a valid title to this land. Neither
do they quash the title of its original claimants –
the human race. The world is God's bequest to mankind.
All men are joint heirs to it; you among the number. And
because you have taken up your residence on a certain
part of it and have subdued, cultivated, beautified that
part – improved it, as you say – you are not
therefore warranted in appropriating it as entirely
private property. At least if you do so, you may at any
moment be justly expelled by the lawful owner –
Society."
"Well, but surely you would not eject me
without making some recompense for the great additional
value I have given to this tract, by reducing what was a
wilderness into fertile fields. You would not turn me
adrift and deprive me of all the benefit of those years
of toil it has cost me to bring this spot into its
present state."
"Of course not; just as in the case of the
house, you would have an equitable title to compensation
from the proprietor for repairs and new fittings, so the
community cannot justly take possession of this estate
without paying for all that you have done to it. This
extra worth which your labor has imparted to it is fairly
yours; and although you have, without leave, busied
yourself in bettering what belongs to the community, yet
no doubt the community will duly discharge your claim.
But admitting this is quite a different thing from
recognizing your right to the land itself. It may be true
that you are entitled to compensation for the
improvements this enclosure has received at your hands;
and at the same time it may be equally true that no act,
form, proceeding, or ceremony can make this enclosure
your private property."
§ 5. It does indeed at first sight
seem possible for the earth to become the exclusive
possession of individuals by some process of equitable
distribution. "Why," it may be asked, "should not men
agree to a fair subdivision? If all are co-heirs, why may
not the estate be equally apportioned and each be
afterward perfect master of his own share?"
To this question it may in the first place
be replied that such a division is vetoed by the
difficulty of fixing the values of respective tracts of
land. Variations in productiveness, different degrees of
accessibility, advantages of climate, proximity to the
centers of civilization – these and other such
considerations remove the problem out of the sphere of
mere mensuration into the region of impossibility.
But, waiving this, let us inquire who are
to be the allottees. Shall adult males and all who have
reached twenty-one on a specified day be the fortunate
individuals? If so, what is to be done with those who
come of age on the morrow? Is it proposed that each man,
woman, and child shall have a section? If so, what
becomes of all who are to be born next year? And what
will be the fate of those whose fathers sell their
estates and squander the proceeds? These portionless ones
must constitute a class already described as having no
right to a resting place on earth – as living by
the sufferance of their fellow men – as being
practically serfs. And the existence of such a class is
wholly at variance with the law of equal freedom.
Until, therefore, we can produce a valid
commission authorizing us to make this distribution,
until it can be proved that God has given one charter of
privileges to one generation and another to the next,
until we can demonstrate that men born after a certain
date are doomed to slavery, we must consider that no such
allotment is permissible.
§ 6. Probably some will regard the
difficulties inseparable from individual ownership of the
soil as caused by pushing to excess a doctrine applicable
only within rational limits. This is a very favorite
style of thinking with some. There are people who hate
anything in the shape of exact conclusions, and these are
of them. According to such, the right is never in either
extreme, but always halfway between the extremes. They
are continually trying to reconcile Yes and No. Ifs and
buts and excepts are their delight. They have so great a
faith in "the judicious mean" that they would scarcely
believe an oracle if it uttered a full-length principle.
Were you to inquire of them whether the earth turns on
its axis from east to west or from west to east, you
might almost expect the reply, "A little of both," or
"Not exactly either." It is doubtful whether they would
assent to the axiom that the whole is greater than its
part, without making some qualification. They have a
passion for compromises. To meet their taste, Truth must
always be spiced with a little Error. They cannot
conceive of a pure, definite, entire, and unlimited law.
And hence, in discussions like the present, they are
constantly petitioning for limitations – always
wishing to Abate and modify and moderate – ever
protesting against doctrines being pursued to their
ultimate consequences.
But it behooves such to recollect that
ethical truth is as exact and as peremptory as physical
truth, and that in this matter of land tenure the verdict
of morality must be distinctly yea or nay. Either men
have a right to make the soil private property or they
have not. There is no medium. We must choose one of the
two positions. There can be no half-and-half opinion. In
the nature of things the fact must be either one way or
the other.
If men have not such a right, we are at
once delivered from the several predicaments already
pointed out. If they have such a right, then is that
right absolute, sacred, not on any pretense to be
violated. If they have such a right, then is his Grace of
Leeds justified in warning off tourists from Ben Mac
Dhui, the Duke of Atholl in closing Glen Tilt, the Duke
of Buccleugh in denying sites to the Free Church, and the
Duke of Sutherland in banishing the Highlanders to make
room for sheep walks. If they have such a right, then it
would be proper for the sole proprietor of any kingdom
– a Jersey or Guernsey, for example to impose just
what regulations he might choose on its inhabitants
– to tell them that they should not live on his
property unless they professed a certain religion, spoke
a particular language, paid him a specified reverence,
adopted an authorized dress, and conformed to all other
conditions he might see fit to make. If they have such a
right, then is there truth in that tenet of the
ultra-Tory school, that the landowners are the only
legitimate rulers of a country – that the people at
large remain in it only by the landowner's permission and
ought consequently to submit to the landowners' rule and
respect whatever institutions the landowners set up.
There is no escape from these inferences. They are
necessary corollaries to the theory that the earth can
become individual property. And they can be repudiated
only by denying that theory.
§ 7. After all, nobody does
implicitly believe in landlordism. We hear of estates
being held under the king – that is, the State
– or of their being kept in trust for the public
benefit; and not that they are the inalienable
possessions of their nominal owners. Moreover, we daily
deny landlordism by our legislation. Is a canal, a
railway, or a turnpike road to be made, we do not scruple
to seize just as many acres as may be requisite, allowing
the holders compensation for the capital invested. We do
not wait for consent. An act of Parliament supersedes the
authority of title deeds and serves proprietors with
notices to quit, whether they will or not. Either this is
equitable or it is not. Either the public are free to
resume as much of the earth's surface as they think fit,
or the titles of the landowners must be considered
absolute, and all national works must be postponed until
lords and squires please to part with the requisite
slices of their estates. If we decide that the claims of
individual ownership must give way, then we imply that
the right of the nation at large to the soil is supreme;
that the right of private possession exists only by
general consent; that general consent being withdrawn, it
ceases – or, in other words, that it is no right at
all.
§ 8. "But to what does this doctrine,
that men are equally entitled to the use of the earth,
lead? Must we return to the times of unenclosed wilds and
subsist on roots, berries, and game? Or are we to be left
to the management of Messrs. Fourrier, Owen, Louis Blanc,
and Co.?" Neither. Such a doctrine is consistent with the
highest state of civilization; may be carried out without
involving a community of goods; and need cause no very
serious revolution in existing arrangements. The change
required would simply be a change of landlords. Separate
ownerships would merge into the joint-stock ownership of
the public. Instead of being in the possession of
individuals, the country would be held by the great
corporate body – Society. Instead of leasing his
acres from an isolated proprietor, the farmer would lease
them from the nation. Instead of paying his rent to the
agent of Sir John or His Grace, he would pay it to an
agent or deputy agent of the community. Stewards would be
public officials instead of private ones, and tenancy the
only land tenure.
A state of things so ordered would be in
perfect harmony with the moral law. Under it all men
would be equally landlords; all men would be alike free
to become tenants. A, B, C, and the rest might compete
for a vacant farm as now, and one of them might take that
farm, without in any way violating the principles of pure
equity. All would be equally free to bid; all would be
equally free to refrain. And when the farm had been let
to A, B, or C, all parties would have done that which
they willed – the one in choosing to pay a given
sum to his fellow men for the use of certain
lands–the others in refusing to pay that sum.
Clearly, therefore, on such a system, the earth might be
enclosed, occupied, and cultivated in entire
subordination to the law of equal freedom.
§ 9. No doubt great difficulties must
attend the resumption, by mankind at large, of their
rights to the soil. The question of compensation to
existing proprietors is a complicated one – one
that perhaps cannot be settled in a strictly equitable
manner. Had we to deal with the parties who originally
robbed the human race of its heritage, we might make
short work of the matter. But, unfortunately, most of our
present landowners are men who have, either mediately or
immediately – either by their own acts or by the
acts of their ancestors – given for their estates
equivalents of honestly earned wealth, believing that
they were investing their savings in a legitimate manner.
To estimate justly and liquidate the claims of such is
one of the most intricate problems society will one day
have to solve. But with this perplexity and our
extrication from it, abstract morality has no concern.
Men, having got themselves into the dilemma by
disobedience to the law, must get out of it as well as
they can, and with as little injury to the landed class
as may be.
Meanwhile, we shall do well to recollect
that there are others besides the landed class to be
considered. In our tender regard for the vested interests
of the few, let us not forget that the rights of the many
are in abeyance, and must remain so, as long as the earth
is monopolized by individuals. Let us remember, too, that
the injustice thus inflicted on the mass of mankind is an
injustice of the gravest nature. The fact that it is not
so regarded proves nothing. In early phases of
civilization even homicide is thought lightly of. The
suttees of India, together with the practice elsewhere
followed of sacrificing a hecatomb of human victims at
the burial of a chief, shows this; and probably cannibals
consider the slaughter of those whom "the fortune of war"
has made their prisoners perfectly justifiable. It was
once also universally supposed that slavery was a natural
and quite legitimate institution – a condition into
which some were born and to which they ought to submit as
to a Divine ordination; nay, indeed, a great proportion
of mankind hold this opinion still. A higher social
development, however, has generated in us a better faith,
and we now to a considerable extent recognize the claims
of humanity. But our civilization is only initial. It may
by and by be perceived that Equity utters dictates to
which we have not yet listened; and men may then learn
that to deprive others of their rights to the use of the
earth is to commit a crime inferior only in wickedness to
the crime of taking away their lives or personal
liberties.
§ 10. Briefly reviewing the argument,
we see that the right of each man to the use of the
earth, limited only by the like rights of his fellow men,
is immediately deducible from the law of equal freedom.
We see that the maintenance of this right necessarily
forbids private property in land. On examination, all
existing titles to such property turn out to be invalid;
those founded on reclamation, inclusive. It appears that
not even an apportionment of the earth among its
inhabitants could generate a legitimate proprietorship.
We find that if pushed to its ultimate consequences a
claim to exclusive possession of the soil involves a
landowning despotism. We further find that such a claim
is constantly denied by the enactments of our
legislature. And we find lastly that the theory of the
co-heirship of all men to the soil is consistent with the
highest civilization, and that, however difficult it may
be to embody that theory in fact, Equity sternly commands
it to be done.