THE ROBBERIES OF THE SEA 423 



of the stories told to the Commission are stories of 

 robbery, and they come from nearly every coast. 

 Lately we had news of a large fall of cliff at Cromer, 

 a few years ago of one at St. Margaret's Bay, in 

 Kent. The sea seems inclined to make two Isles of 

 Wight of one by smashing in at Freshwater, where 

 the broken military road, far out on the shore of the 

 bay, shows how rapid the encroachment has been. 

 Elsewhere, of course, notably at Hythe, the piling up 

 of sand has made inland towns of what once were 

 harbours, and the silt of large and muddy rivers has 

 changed saltings into first-rate meadows. We know 

 one landowner who, by merely sinking old barges full 

 of stones, has induced the river to pile round them 

 acres of rich mud, on which bullocks now make 

 heavy beef. His tale, we suppose, will not come 

 before the Committee, though if in another of his 

 estates Neptune should have robbed him, the nation 

 will hear of it. It may be that by the silt he has 

 taken some one else is the poorer. Here is the exact 

 reversal of the usual land problem as indicated in the 

 phrase " unearned increment." The industry of one 

 man in setting up groins or retaining walls not only 

 leaves his neighbour's property unimproved, but often 

 causes it to be worsened. The sea may next creep 

 round the improver's land through the other's neglect 

 and, taking it in flank, sweep it worse than if he had 

 done nothing to protect it. Yet, on the whole, it is 

 true of maritime neighbours that when your land 

 consumes, mine is in danger. 



From the ordered, mechanic action of the tides in 

 a river we have evolved a simple enough code of 

 rights and duties obtaining between neighbours. Each 



