PROBLEMS OF PROPERTY. 337 



soil, and not scores of independent families with their personal inter- 

 ests and all the healthy influences of an independent, self-reliant 

 struggle. In manufacturing and trading, as well as in farming, the 

 strong large companies and houses are absorbing the weaker, and the 

 fortunate ones who head the movement tend to become proportionately 

 fewer as the process goes on. Every child now born into the world's 

 theatre finds most of the best seats taken, and a good many of the 

 second best. In all this I think there is danger, for which it is be- 

 coming necessary that preventives were thoughtfully sought. 



Without deliberately facing the problem of have and icant, there 

 has been for ages a lurking, unconscious impression abroad that the 

 differences in human fortunes are apt to injuriously widen that the 

 very poor have a moral claim upon the rich ; that somehow, if human 

 affairs were once to be placed on a basis of right, there would be none 

 very poor, and so roundabout justice has for long been calling itself 

 charity. The English poor-laws, dating from Elizabeth, which guar- 

 antee the natives of a parish support by the parish, is the most note- 

 worthy example of this. Perhaps the next most striking example is 

 our modern state education, which goes beyond the enforcing on a 

 parent of bis child's education as it enforces its provision of food, 

 clothes, and shelter and, as it seems that these latter expenses are all 

 the parent can usually bear, the child of the poor man is sent to school 

 chiefly at the charge of the rich and well-to-do. The attempt at rec- 

 tifying, however crudely, somewhat of the current social injustice, 

 reconciles many to the measure who would otherwise oppose it on 

 the high grounds of liberty and the inviolable responsibility which 

 should remain with a parent for why should bread not be given to 

 the children by the state as well as books ? 



Besides public-school education, there have been many commend- 

 able attempts within recent years at reducing the glaring inequalities 

 of fortune so common and so undesirable. Public parks, libraries, 

 museums, picture-galleries, and hospitals have been established with 

 public funds for the popular good ; and wealthy men have given large 

 gifts to them, recognizing the responsibility of riches and doing some- 

 thing for the toilers who have brought their accumulations together. 

 Yet if we are to expect more of justice in the institution of property 

 as time goes on, we may expect to see the circle of charity recede as 

 opportunities for its exercise diminish. 



Having briefly and very imperfectly stated some of the evils which 

 attend {he present methods of distributing and accumulating property, 

 let us proceed to glance at the principal remedies suggested for their 

 correction. The formal proposals for the righting of the wrongs of 

 property have begun usually with land. In Great Britain not only re- 

 formers and philosophers, but parliamentary commissioners have again 

 and again pronounced against the laws and customs of primogeniture 

 and entail. These laws and customs are held to lead to unduly large 



VOL. XXI. 22 



