Invasion of Proprietary Rights. 127 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH A LANDLORD SHOULD FARM, 

 BOTH FOR HIMSELF AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 



IN order to collect votes for his party a politician, it is 

 obvious, must be perpetually nibbling at something 

 that he thinks will serve his ends. According to 

 the Indian proverb the three great desires of man are, 

 Hunna, Henoo, Munoo — ^money, women and land, and no 

 doubt the party politician is not far wrong in selecting 

 land as a convenient engine for creating party votes, and 

 one of his chief reasons for doing so, of course, is that he 

 can appeal to the plundermg instincts which we have 

 inherited from our remote ancestors, and which are but 

 thinly varnished with a moderate amount of Christian 

 doctrines, so thinly indeed that, under the pretence of 

 doing justice to the masses the politician at once gathers 

 votes for himself and advantages free of cost to his 

 constituents, and blinds both himself and them to the 

 nature of his actions when the rights of property are to be 

 diverted, in a greater or less degree, for the benefit of 

 others. There is always at least a chance of this being 

 effected because unfortunately we have not, as the 

 Americans have, the safe-guard of a written constitution. 

 This, in their case provides such checks on any invasion 

 of proprietary rights that it is certain that any Act at all 

 resembling the Irish Land Act could not have been 

 passed in America without an alteration of its written 

 constitution, and the difiiculties of obtaining this are so 

 great that it may be regarded as practically unattain- 

 able.* For it has been laid down with great clearness 



* To alter the constitution it is necessary to have a two-thirds majority 

 of both houses and a reference to the constituents besides muningled with 

 any other matter than that for which an alteration in the constitution is , 

 proposed to be carried out. 



