LETTERS ON THE LAND QUE STL ON. 511 



every day see the yearly returns of land-sales) became possessed 

 in old days of their land by force. But if an act of ancient force 

 is sufficient cause to disinherit these holders of land, it must, I 

 fear, also disinherit the whole nation, for we all came here by 

 force. Celt, as far as we know, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman came 

 by force, and the nation that is rather strangely asked to show its 

 horror of past force by carrying out anew another wholesale act 

 of force, is itself out of court for the very same offense as that 

 under which it is proposed to condemn the land-owners. 



4. All the articles of use and commerce if we except those 

 taken from water are drawn in the marvelous laboratory of 

 nature from or under the soil, or from the soil and air combined. 

 Every tree, every crop of corn or roots, every fleece, contains in 

 itself positively and actually so much of the soil where it was 

 raised. Where, then, is the logic of declaring that certain parti- 

 cles and these the very best when taken from the soil may be 

 private property, while the other particles which are generally 

 of lesser value left lying in the field are, by some abstract right, 

 the property of an unknown and unstated portion of the people 

 called a majority who have never yet set eyes upon their prop- 

 erty, and could not distinguish it if they did ? My coat is now my 

 private property ; but years ago, before the grass grew which fed 

 the sheep, the larger part was public property. What a marvelous 

 transformation, and what inextricable confusion both of theory 

 and of fact ! How a thing which, as a matter of abstract right, 

 once belonged to everybody, can rightly become my private prop- 

 erty, I am utterly unable to understand. Perhaps Mr. George or 

 Mr. Laidler could help me. 



Then for the expediency. Is the race to deprive itself, for the 

 sake of a theory that can not hold what is put into it better than 

 a sieve can hold water, of the immense happiness and comfort that 

 may come to thousands and thousands of families from the per- 

 manency of possession ? If the land belongs to the majority, can 

 there be this permanency ? How can you let A and A's family 

 retain forever the possession of the holding which he has indus- 

 triously acquired, when B and C are waiting for their turn of 

 what, without any industry or acquisitive virtue on their part, is 

 declared to belong to them ? That A is better fitted naturally 

 selected to fill the holding, to use it happily and profitably for 

 himself and for society, must count as nothing in face of the fact 

 that B and C have taken the trouble to be born the owners of it. 

 Then, too, comes in all the trouble and confusion about improve- 

 ments, where property is split into this double ownership between 

 the abstract state and the concrete holder. Improvements, we are 

 told, can only realize their full value if there be a free sale and 

 fixed rents. Do any persons in their sober senses imagine that 



