ORIGIN OF LAND-OWNERSHIP. 647 



that intention ; and the purchaser, being the first acquainted with 

 such intention, steps in and seizes the vacant possession. Thus 

 the act of abandonment gives the new taker a right against the 

 first, acting by what is known in law as an estoppel, and posses- 

 sion or occupancy is by natural law good against all the world 

 besides. The most effectual way of abandonment is by death of 

 the occupant, when both the possession and intention of keeping 

 possession ceasing, the right of occupancy by natural law also 

 ceases, and the land is open to the next taker. The custom, which 

 has ripened into statute law, that the next of blood take on decease 

 of the occupant, has its foundation in natural law instead of mere 

 civil right. A man's children, those of his blood, his nearest 

 relatives, are usually about him on his death-bed, and are presum- 

 ably the first witnesses of his decease. They become, therefore, 

 presumably and by natural law, the next occupants, until in pro- 

 cess of time this frequent usage ripened into social law. 



I have gone to this length in discussing the origin of so-called 

 private property in land to ascertain on what support of natural 

 justice and moral right it rests. This consideration is the foun- 

 dation upon which stands the whole superstructure of proposed 

 single taxation ; for, " if private property in land be just, then is 

 the remedy proposed a false one." If the individual has no such 

 property, or the tenure by which he holds occupancy is supported 

 by natural law, and his use of the land is consistent with natural 

 justice, even though it works a wrong to another, the fault is not 

 due to " maladministration of social laws," in this particular at 

 least. 



Investigation leads me to assert that the occupant of to-day 

 holds by a tenure as much supported by natural justice and moral 

 right as did the first taker ; and more so, because he has, by ex- 

 change of his capital, the product of his labor, purchased the 

 improvements added by every occupant preceding him. 



Land has no absolute value. In a natural state and unoccu- 

 pied by man it produces no wealth. It is only as capital and labor 

 are applied to it that it becomes a factor in wealth, and hence 

 acquires a commercial value. I agree to the proposition that 

 what a man makes or produces is his own to enjoy, to use, to 

 exchange, or to give ; that no one else can rightfully claim it, and 

 his exclusive right to it involves no wrong to any one else. So, 

 if by his labor and capital man in occupation of land removes it 

 from the state in which Nature has left it, improves it, renders it 

 more productive, or if he acquires by exchange the improvements 

 already made therein by another, he has joined to it something 

 that is his own, and has created a value in it that did not exist 

 before. Admitting the proposition that government, representing 

 in the social state the common rights of the community, may 



