Land, like any other thing, becomes an article of property
originally by occupation, and its value is enhanced by labour. There
is no more reason why all land, or the rents of all land, should
belong to the State, than why all house property, or all house rents,
should belong to the State. If the people need land to live on, so do
they need houses to live in, coals to burn, and shoes to wear.
Socialism, once admitted, cannot be confined to land alone. It will
exterminate "the lord manufacturer" as remorselessly as it
exterminates the landlord.
2. Every man, it is contended, has a right to live on the fruits of
the soil. The proposition is needlessly long. It should be put simply:
Every man has a right to live. For as to living on the fruits of the
soil, there is absolutely nothing else that man can live on. All human
nutriment whatever is derived from what geologists call pulverised
rocks, that is, soil. But if it is meant that every man has a right to
live on the fruits of some soil or land of his own, where is the
proof? So long as the fruits of the earth do not fail to reach a man's
mouth, what matters it whose earth it is that grows them? Some of the
richest as well as the poorest members of the community are landless
men.
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