CONCLUSION. 231 



position that we have the MORAL RIGHT to ' capitalize' 

 the earth, and disfranchise seventy-nine eightieths of 

 the inhabitants of this country by 'Act of Parlia- 

 ment/ and the ' Custom of Conveyancers '? [for it 

 is authoritatively said (and there are no statistics to 

 disprove it !) that the owners of land do not number 

 above two hundred and fifty thousand, out of a popu- 

 lation of twenty millions !] 



Mark the consequence. Instead of the soil being, 

 as it was meant to be, the first and best of Savings' 

 banks for capitals of every size ; to the Peasant and 

 the Yeoman, as well as the Duke and the Squire, we 

 assume the audacious office of readjusting natural and 

 common right, and pronounce for a system which 

 agglomerates land into hands that may monopolize, 

 but after all cannot themselves use it, and cut down the 

 whole interest of the rest of the ' agricultural commu- 

 nity ' to the rank and position of ' Tenant-farmers/ 

 They do not, as a class, penetrate the meaning or the 

 mischief of it : they are " to the manner born ;" and 

 think it ' all right ' if they could only get ' Tenant- 

 right ;' (as if the hirer of an article of limited supply, 

 could have any ' right ' but what the owner may choose 

 to give liim !) 



But then a LEASE ! What is the use of a Lease 



