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acceptation of the term, but they must be paid for their service, and for this payment deductions must be made from the labourer's produce, in contravention of the principle that the labourer is entitled to the total produce of his labour. Further, if there is no single production that does not involve the labour of many workers, and workers of many sorts, how is this variety of service essential to the value of any commodity to be recognised? If in the measure in which industry is skilled, no particular product can be regarded as the result of the toil of one workman, how is it possible to fix what is the whole produce to which every labourer is entitled? The claim is beset with difficulties. A Fabian essayist has endeavoured to cut the knot by saying that "the only truly socialistic scheme will absolutely abolish all economic distinctions, and establish the impossibility of their again arising, by making an equal provision for the maintenance of all an indefeasible condition of citizenship without any regard whatever to the relative specific services of different citizens." Then, it may safely be said that "the only truly socialistic scheme" attempts the impossible; and that if, in its idea and aim, socialism is interpreted by such a scheme, the part which it prescribes for itself is a constant ploughing of the sands.

Property in Land.

237

That the labourer has an absolute right to all the produce of his labour is not evident, unless by the labourer is understood every one who by brain, intelligence, money, or manual service contributes to the result. But we can all urge that the labourer, in the restricted acceptation of the term, is entitled to an equitable proportion. It is the business of the State to see that the conditions of contracting for his labour are righteous, to protect him against being defrauded, to put him in the way of realising a fair value for himself, whilst he is creating value for society. Where the intervention of the State is required to free industry, or to guard the workman and give him full play for his energy and for larger amounts of happiness, there is the call for the application of its powers. But every demand needs to be carefully scrutinised, and, in the interests both of the individual and of the community, doubtful claims need to be challenged.

II.

The grudge of the more advanced expressions of socialism against property in land is keen and bitter. "Private property is theft," said Proudhon; and his saying is one of the funda

mental principles of the new economy. The land, with all its potentialities, is held to belong to the people. Nothing, it is urged, can be called property that is not the fruit of labour; and land is not the fruit of labour, but the gift of God intended for all alike.1 No person, therefore, has a right to the exclusive tenure of any portion of it. "To the landed estates of the Duke of Westminster," exclaimed Mr George, "the poorest child that is born in London to-day has as much right as his eldest son.' 2

Now, with regard to this contention two points may be made. First, is the distinction between land and other material-viz., that the one is God's gift to all, and consequently is not to be called property; and the other, being the fruit of labour, is not gift but property-justified by common-sense? The soil, indeed, is a gift of the Creator to man. But the same may be said of all on which man operates; and the condition on which the soil becomes a source of wealth is identical with that on which anything else becomes a source of wealth-that is, the labour of man. The Indian tribes which roamed

1 This is the contention of Henry George in 'Progress and Poverty.'

2 Quoted in 'Contemporary Socialism,' p. 489.

The Right to the Fruits of Cultivation. 239

through the forests of America, and the Australian aborigines who reared their rude tents in the bush, saw the land, trode it, slept on it; but it yielded them no wealth, except that which was realised by produce on which they bestowed no labour, and by the use of bow and arrow. There was no value in it for them, because the gift of God did not, by labour, become property. If labour is essential to the utilisation of the gift, then, accepting the definition given, the question of property in land comes immediately into view. No abstract conception of the land as belonging to all alike can bar the right to possess the fruits of the portion of land which one man or one family cultivates. But, second, in respect of this right, does not the Christian ethicist maintain that no one has an absolute and unchallengeable tenure of any good? Property has been defined as "the right to use and to abuse."1 'A claim," observes Herbert Spencer, "to private property in land involves a landowning despotism. And the case he puts is, "It would be proper for the sole proprietor of any kingdom-a Jersey or Guernsey, for example-to impose just what regulations he might choose on its inhabitants, to tell them that they should not live on his 1 M. Proudhon.

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property unless they professed a certain religion, spoke a particular language, paid him a specified reverence, adopted an authorised dress, and conformed to all other conditions he might see fit to make.”1 Now, there is no need to deal with an assertion so extravagant. It is not within the range of practical politics. But one who looks forth on society in the mind of Christ rejects the idea of an "unlimited despotism." He holds that any and every tenure are from the righteous God, and that to Him and His righteousness all are responsible for its occupancy. None have such a right to it as to have the right to abuse it. If a landlord abuses his possession, if, under his custody, it becomes a loss instead of a gain to the nation, he is guilty of a malversation for which he must answer to the Judge of all the earth, and of a wrong to society for which society may call him to account. Rights are balanced by duties; they cease, in moral equity at least, to be rights when the duties are neglected, and beyond a certain point-that at which flagrant derelictions and injustices can be proved-the nation, through its executive, the State, may and should demand a reckoning. Parliament has restricted the "despotism" of the landlord, 1 Social Statics, chap. ix.

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