THE ENGLISH LAND SYSTEM 89 



having the power to do so— is entitled to abolish the 

 rights and take the property of other men, or of the 

 community, on the grounds that they can put it to a 

 more profitable use, is a doctrine capable of a far- 

 reaching and dangerous application. 



But the territorial classes were at the time all-power- 

 ful, and could settle among themselves what they 

 considered right ; while those whose interests they 

 dealt with were voteless and powerless. In these 

 modern times an advocate of the rights of a de- 

 spoiled peasantry, reviewing the question in the light 

 of equal justice between man and man, cannot fail to 

 condemn the whole proceedings. He may justly ask, 

 in the words of the eminent Swiss economist — M. de 

 Sismondi — who wrote on the subject at the time : — 



" You tell me you have improved the land, but 

 what have you done with the labourer ? You have 

 converted vast wastes into cornfields, but what have 

 you given the peasant in exchange for his common- 

 able rights ?"^ 



In the same strain a distinguished English economist 

 writes : — 



" Few persons are less inclined than I am to call 

 hard names ; it is generally best, even when we are 

 protesting against an injustice, to protest against it 

 under the most moderate appellation which it admits 

 of. But there are cases when things ought to 

 be called by names which throw no veil over their 

 enormity, and I confess that I cannot speak of the 

 existing practice of dividing the common lands among 

 the landlords by any gentler name than robbery — 

 robbery of the poor. It will, of course, be said that 

 people cannot be robbed of what is not theirs, and 

 that the commons are not the legal property of the 



^ Essays by M. de Sismondi on " Political Economy and the Philo- 

 sophy of Government,'' translated from the French. 



