370 NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS vm 



Let us consider what " Progress and Povi 

 has to say about this question. 



"\Vhat most prevents the realisation of the injustice of 

 private property in land is the habit of including all the things 

 that are made the subject of ownership in one category 

 property. . . . The real and natural distinction is between things 

 which are the produce of labour and things which are the 

 gratuitous offerings of Nature ; or, to adopt the terms of political 

 economy, between wealth and land. These two things are in 

 essence and relations widely different, and to class them together 

 as property is to confuse all thought when we come to consider 

 the justice, or the injustice, the right or wrong of property. . . . 



The essential character of the one class of things is that 

 they embody labour, are brought into being by human exertion, 

 their existence or non-existence, their increase or diminution, 

 depending on man. The essential character of the other class 

 of things is that they do not embody labour, and exist irrespec- 

 tive of human exertion and irrespective of man ; they are the 

 field or environment in which man finds himself ; the storehouse 

 from which his needs must be supplied ; the raw material upon 

 which and the forces with which his labour alone can act. 

 (" Progress and Poverty," pp. 238239.) 



The latter kind of property is land, the former 

 all other commodities which constitute men's 

 possessions; and the latter are said, it will be 

 observed, to be " brought into being by human 

 exertion, their existence or non-existence, their 

 increase or diminution depending on man.'' 

 Surely this is an assertion which, though pardon- 

 able enough as a common manner of speaking, 



Daire's collection (p. 657). All /</</<.- <>r commodities, including 

 land, are, in the long run, more or less fashioned natural pro- 

 ducts ; "presents da la nature, mais aussi effete de 1'art." 



