PROPERTY. 547 



Kandy district of the Campine and beyond the Meuse ; in 

 the Ardennes region,&quot; where there is great &quot; want of commu- 

 nicati^n :&quot; the implied difficulty of access and the poverty of 

 surtace making relatively small the temptation to invade. 

 So that while, says Laveleye, &quot; except in the Ardennes, 

 the lord had succeeded in usurping the eminent domain, 

 without however destroying the inhabitants rights of user/ 1 

 in the Ardennes itself, the primitive communal possession 

 survived. Other cases show that the mountainous character 

 of a locality, rendering subjugation by external or internal 

 force impracticable, furthers maintenance of this primitive 

 institution, as of other primitive institutions. In Switzerland, 

 and especially in its Alpine parts, the allmends above men 

 tioned, which are of the same essential nature as the Teutonic 

 marks, have continued down to the present day. Sundry 

 kindred regions present kindred facts. Ownership of land by 

 family-communities is still to be found &quot; in the bill-districts 

 of Lombardy.&quot; In the poverty-stricken and mountainous por 

 tion of Auvergne, as also in the hilly and infertile depart 

 ment of Nievre, there are still, or recently have been, these 

 original joint-ownerships of land. And the general remark 

 concerning the physical circumstances in which they occur, is 

 that &quot; it is to the wildest and most remote spots that we 

 must go in search of them&quot; a truth again illustrated 

 &quot; in the small islands of Hoedic and Honat, situated not far 

 from Belle Isle &quot; on the French coast, and also in our own 

 islands of Orkney and Shetland. 



Contrariwise, we find that directly by invasion, and in 

 directly by the chronic resistance to invasion which gene 

 rates those class-inequalities distinguishing the militant type, 

 there is produced individualization of land-ownership, in one 

 or other form. All the world over, conquest gives a posses 

 sion that is unlimited because there is no power to dispute 

 it. Along with other spoils of war, the land becomes a spoil ; 

 and, according to the nature of the conquering society, is 

 owned wholly by the despotic conqueror, or, partially and in 

 94 



