CHAPTER XVI.

SACRED RIGHTS OF PROPERTY.

I have already stated that Mill, when he allows that which Herbert Spencer terms “political bias,”--and Luigi Cossa terms his “_narrow philosophic utilitarianism_,” to warp his better judgment,--is guilty of absurdities and inconsistencies that would disgrace a schoolboy. This is notably apparent when he attempts to draw a fundamental distinction between land and any other property, as regards its “sacred rights.”

Mr. Mill greatly admired the prosperity of the peasant proprietors in France and Belgium, unfortunately forgetting that a system, suited to the sober thrifty peasantry of the Continent, might possibly not be equally suitable to the improvident lower classes of Ireland and England,[56] neglectful also of the sensible view taken by M. De Lavergne that “_cultivation spontaneously finds out the organization that suits it best_.”[57] He wished therefore to establish an Utopia of peasant proprietors in England and Ireland as a panacea for the evils which Free Trade in the first place, and mischievous legislation in the second place, had brought upon agriculture. Without presuming to offer an opinion on the debated subjects of “Grande” and “Petite Culture,” or peasant and landlord proprietorship, I may say that cultivation appears to have found out spontaneously the organization best suited to it, and that, in England and Ireland, landlordism seems best suited to the improvident character of the lower classes, in providing capital to help the tenants over bad times, and enabling improvements to be made in prosperous times.

Be this as it may, peasant proprietorship has proved to be a failure in Ireland, and is rapidly becoming extinct.[58] Writers on the subject state that, under that system, labour was so ill-directed, that it required six men to provide food for ten; and consolidation of holdings is recommended. Mr. Mill, however, thought otherwise, and biased by this political conviction, he has propounded the following extraordinary arguments to prove that the sacred rights of property are not applicable in the case of landed property[59]:--

(1) “No man made the land.”

(2) It is the original inheritance of the whole species.[60]

(3) Its appropriation is wholly a question of general expediency.

(4) When private property in land is not expedient, it is unjust.

(5) It is no hardship to any one to be excluded from what others have produced.

(6) But it is a hardship to be born into the world and to find all nature’s gifts previously engrossed.

(7) Whoever owns land, keeps others out of the enjoyment of it.

Now let us apply Mr. Mill’s arguments to any other kind of property.

Suppose I say to you:--“My friend! you have two coats; hand one of them over to me! Sacred rights of property don’t apply to it; you did not make it; and Mill says--‘_it is no hardship to be excluded from what others have produced_;’ but it is some hardship to be born into the world, and to find all nature’s gifts engrossed. Your argument that you paid for it in hard cash is worthless. _No man made_ silver and gold, ‘it is the original inheritance of the whole species, the receiver is as bad as the thief, and you have connived in the robbery of those metals from the earth, leaving posterity yet unborn to be under the hardship of finding all nature’s gifts engrossed.’

“The manufacture of your coat is based on robbery and injustice, and you have connived at it; the iron and coal used in its production were _made by no man_, they are the _common inheritance of the species_, those who have obtained them have robbed posterity. You have bribed them to do so by silver and gold, also robbed from posterity.

“The very wool of which your coat is formed was _made by no man_, it was robbed from a defenceless sheep. Your argument that the sheep was the property of the shearer is useless. No man made the sheep, it is the common inheritance of all, &c. Your argument that his owner reared the sheep, is equally worthless. Monster! if you find a child, have you a right to rob him and make a slave of him? such an argument would justify slavery[61] or worse.

“When _private property is not expedient it is unjust_, and from my ground of view, it is not expedient that this private property should be yours; public only differs from private expediency in degree. ‘He who owns property keeps others out of the enjoyment of it,’ the sacred rights of property don’t apply to this coat; so hand it over without any more of your absurd arguments. Nay! if you don’t, and as I see some one is approaching who may interfere, its appropriation is one of expediency,--individual expediency must follow the same law as general expediency,--it is expedient that I should draw my knife across your throat, otherwise I shall lose that which is my inheritance in common with the rest of the species.” And so I might argue _ad infinitum_.

Mr. Mill’s sophisms however are, what Cossa terms, “concessions more apparent than real to socialism,” for further on, in his Political Economy, he completely stultifies his argument by stating that the principle of property gives to the landowners:--

“a right to compensation for whatever portion of their interest in the land it may be the policy of the State to deprive them of. To that _their claim is indefeasible_. It is due to landowners, and to owners of any property whatever recognised as such by the State, that they should not be dispossessed of it without receiving its pecuniary value.... This is due on the _general principles on which property rests_. If the land was bought with the produce of the labour and abstinence of themselves or their ancestors, compensation is due to them on that ground; _even if otherwise_, it is still due on the ground of prescription.”

“Nor,” he adds, “can it ever be necessary for accomplishing an object by which the community altogether will gain, that a particular portion of the community should be immolated.”[62]

Unfortunately, however, his mischievous denial of the sacred rights of property in land is eagerly read, while his subsequent qualification of it is neglected by those who, like Mr. Bright, aim at the destruction of a political opponent; or, like Mr. Gladstone, are bent on a particular policy, reckless of the results in carrying it out; or, like Mr. Parnell and his followers, whose hands itch for plunder; and it has produced a general haziness of ideas amongst that well-meaning class of people who are good-naturedly liberal with the property of other people.

Yet, clothe it with what sophism you will, any attempt, whether legalized or otherwise, to deprive the landowner of his property and to violate his rights, is as unjustifiable as the depredations of the burglar or the pickpocket. Nay more so; because the statesman or political economist cannot plead poverty or want of education as his excuse.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] If we were to partition out England into a Mill’s Utopia of peasant proprietors to-morrow, it would not last a week; half of the proprietors would convert their holdings into drink, and be in a state of intoxication until it was expended.

[57] ‘Grande and Petite Culture. Rural Economy of France.’ De Lavergne.

[58] The yeomen and small tenant-farmers, men of little capital, have almost disappeared, and the process of improving them off the face of the agricultural world is still progressing to its bitter end; homestead after homestead has been deserted, and farm has been added to farm--a very unpleasing result of the inexorable principle--the survival of the fittest--by means of which even the cultivators of the soil are selected;--but a result which, not the laws of nature, but the bungling arrangements of human legislators, have rendered inevitable. (Bear., _Fortnightly Review_, September, 1873.)

[59] ‘Mill’s Political Economy,’ Bk. II. Chap. II.

[60] The original inheritors have, through their lawfully constituted rulers, parted with their property, having, in most cases, received an equivalent for it in the shape, either of eminent services rendered to the State, or else of actual payments in hard cash; and these transactions have been deliberately ratified and acknowledged by the laws of the country from time immemorial. It is therefore simply childish to argue that the land thus disposed of still belongs to the original inheritors, after they have enjoyed for past years the proceeds for which they have bartered the land that once belonged to them.

[61] I beg your pardon, my dear Fanatic, I see I have unconsciously made a slight mistake. Mill says, that appropriation is wholly a matter of general expediency, and on that ground you _may_ justify slavery.

[62] Mill’s Political Economy, Bk. II. Chap. II.