LETTERS ON THE LAND QUESTION. 343 



proposed to do in the case of land, from the individual to the 

 State. 



But, however this may be, it seems clear that the principle 

 which excludes the ownership of one man by another, rests upon 

 the same grounds as that which includes private property in land 

 viz., that the general interests of society are best promoted by 

 personal freedom. 



There seems to be sufficient evidence that compulsory labor is 

 less productive than free labor; and if this is so we may con- 

 clude, even setting aside all considerations of humanity or mo- 

 rality, that the interests of society are better promoted by free 

 labor or property in one's self, than by slavery or property in 

 others. 



This is usually admitted, but it is necessary to insist upon 

 what is always forgotten by those who declaim against private 

 property in land that this last institution also is an essential 

 condition of personal freedom, as by no other means short of 

 coercion can a due relation be maintained between demand and 

 supply. 



Whoever holds the land holds that which, being limited in 

 extent (the only assumption on which the question arises), im- 

 poses on its possessor the function and duty, which he is bound in 

 the interest of society, no less than his own, to perform, of restrict- 

 ing an undue pressure on the soil, whether for agricultural or 

 urban purposes, whether for food or shelter, by the increasing 

 wants of the population. 



If the family is the economic unit, this object may be effected 

 by the exercise of the personal responsibility and authority of its 

 head in regulating supply, and by a gradual augmentation of 

 price and rent in restraining demand. When the limits of pro- 

 duction or supply are reached, any additional population must 

 migrate or be supported, if possible, by charity. 



But whenever the economic unit is extended so as to include 

 a whole community, this personal responsibility, and with it per- 

 sonal liberty, disappears. In a small district (a village or canton) 

 where the conditions approximate to family or patriarchal life the 

 evil is mitigated ; but in a large and complex society, to vest the 

 property of the soil in the State i. e., in a central Government, 

 removed, as it must be, from all personal contact with individu- 

 als is to throw upon it the paramount obligation of either regu- 

 lating the increase of population or of providing food and shelter 

 for increasing numbers by progressive inroads upon the accumu- 

 lated capital of the country in short, upon the net product, which 

 is the only source of a progressive civilization. The first of these 

 alternatives can not be better described than in the words of 

 Bastiat : 



