standard of justice in the earth, and enjoying all the glorious benefits arising from an agrarian equality?

The spirit which would animate such a people, in case of invasion, may be justly compared to that which would animate a village if one of its houses was on fire, every man in the village, the moment the alarm was given, would load himself with water, and hasten to the spot with all possible speed, to endeavour to arrest those devouring flames, which would perhaps, if not extinguished, not only reduce his neighbour's house, but the whole village to ashes. Such a people would be so wedded to their country, that on such an occasion all self would be lost in the glorious blaze of social love?

Had it not been for the circumstance of the Roman citizens being all freeholders, it would have been Rome, and not Carthage, that would have been razed to the ground. The Romans, in fighting for their estates, set their lives on the cast, they were triumphant; and Hannibal, the Napoleon of ancient times, perished in exile.

12

What liberty can you enjoy without possessing land? If you traverse a field, do you not commit a tresspass 1? If you pluck a berry, do you not violate the law? If you carry off one single grain of sand, do you not commit a larceny? It is said the serpent was condemned to lick the dust; but dare you lick the dust? No, to lick the dust in England would be a privilege!

The dust is my lord's, the sand is my lord's, the berry is any lord's, for the field is my lord's, into which you cannot intrude though under the most pressing necessity, without the risk of a prosecution. It is necessary to refer to the late cases of persons taken up under the infamous vagrant act. My Lord in possessing the land as private property, possesses all the other elements, fire, water, and air, as far as his domains extend, since every thing within the sphere of his estate is his Lordship's, from the lowest depth of the earth, to the highest point in the heavens. I should not be surprised,

12 But if every individual had his six acres, he would not be at liberty to trespass upon the six acres of another. And if he let it out for rent as you propose, he would not be at liberty in addition to his rent to go and make what use he pleased of it. Your optics are certainly imperfect in application to this subject, Brother Devenport. I mean to say, your view of the matter is narrow, incorrect, and not to be carried into practice. I approach to you as near as I see my way well before me, and you must excuse me if I abstain from wandering in the dark, running my head against a post, or falling into a pit. As it is there is more difference between us in words and sound, than in sense and meaning. R. C.

No. 13, Vol. X.

if I were to here of an action brought against some of the balloon gentlemen, for tresspass in passing the atmosphere over some great Lord's fields.

I feel as certain as I do of my own existence, that equal liberties will never be obtained, that equal rights will never be enjoyed, and that a fair and impartial administration of justice will never be established, till the system of private property in land be abolished.

That a republican government is preferable to a monarchical one, even the supporters of the latter scarcely attempt to deny; and that the form of government recommended by Paine, is the best that ever has yet been put into practice, is also undeniable; but even was such a form of government as that established in this. country, it would be unable, however willing it may be, under the present laws relative to landed property, to rescue those tens of thousands of poor helpless creatures from the parish work-houses, those abodes of sorrow, of degradation, and of misery; nor could it make those independent of public charities, who have been so long compelled to depend on them for daily subsistence.

You have said in one of the Republicans, that you go to the root, and if any man will shew you that you are not at the root you will go deeper; deeper then, Sir, you must go, for if you are at the root, you are not yet at the bottom of it; where you must be before you can extract it. Your system may destroy that part of the root of the evil which is visible above the surface; but to eradicate it entirely, every fibre must be destroyed, and even the ground in which it grew, must undergo a total change.

I remember, Sir, you made an objection to my including houses in the public rental, as houses must be individual property. This I admit. They are manufactured articles. But I think the house-owners, if they could be made to thoroughly understand their own interest, would not object to their houses being made public property. A man who has a freehold house worth £100. a year rent, would be a gainer by the change; a very little reasoning will make this quite clear. Suppose you had a freehold house that would bring in £100. a year, you would have to pay, under the present system, at least, £25. in taxes annually. So that, if your freehold was worth £2000. every atom of it would pass from you to another master in eighty years, if you did not redeem it annually by paying a rent, call it taxes if you please, of £25. But this is not all, for whilst you are paying £25. a year for your freehold, you are paying perhaps

£100. a year on the articles which you and your family consume. Thus, in direct and indirect taxes, you are compelled to pay annually to the amount of £125.13 in order to retain your little estate. You would therefore pay to the government in rent or taxes, which is the same thing, the whole value of your freehold every fifty-three years. Refuse these payments, and you would be as readily turned out of your freehold, as a man would be turned out of his house, if he were to refuse to pay rent to his landlord. Why would it not be as well then, to pay rent to the people, as to pay thrice the amount in taxes to the government 14? Mr. Southey must have had ideas something like these floating in his mind, when he put the following words into the mouth of John Ball, in his beautiful poem "Wat Tyler," "that all mankind as brethren must be equal; that privileged orders of society are evil and oppressive; that the right of property is a juggle to deceive the poor whom they oppress." Mr. Southey meant, no doubt, that the right of private property in land was a juggle to deceive; otherwise, he goes further than I in political reform, for the plain text seems to include all kinds of property, even his own hundred a year, and his annual pipe of wine, the exclusive property of the Poet Laureate.

It is generally said, that all wealth is acquired by labour, in the first instance this is true, but the operations of nature

13 This is making my payment more than my income. It is altogether a shuffle of words, a juggle of words. The question is, the smallest amount of taxation for a revenue to meet the expences of Government, and the raising, if possible, that taxation in the shape of rent upon land, so as to leave the people in reality untaxed. Even, if there were no tax or rent upon land, competition would supply its produce to the consumer at a price so much the less; and this fact refutes your whole scheme. Excessive taxation on industry, and a bad application of those taxes, constitute the evils under which we now suffer. The evil may be said to lay altogether in the application of the taxes, which supports idleness at the expence of industry. A heavy taxation, where it can be best borne, applied fairly to public improvements,does not appear to me to be injurious to the public as a whole: because there are certain improvements which are too great for individuals or private companies to undertake. General improvements must_be_the work of a Government. R. C.

In

14 Paying to the people, and paying to a just Government, is one and the same thing: the difference is an unintelligible play upon words. political truth, the people is nothing, nobody. Speak of an individual, and you speak of something; speak of a people and you speak of nothing tangible. The people is the wand of the political conjuror. He may deceive and rob you; but he neither instructs not benefits. When you see a unanimous people, you will have a people to speak about; but in such a country as this, made up of a thousand sects, each considers itself the people.

R. C.

1

never ought to be lost sight of, if we wish fairly to understand our real condition in society, and to ascertain the full extent of our natural rights 15.

In the manufacturing and commercial world every thing depends on industry alone; but in agriculture, nature performs a very prominent part. The moment a mechanic lays down his tools, every prospect of gain is suspended, all is still and mute, nothing stirs around him, nothing supplies his absence, to facilitate the conclusion of what he had begun: whilst the man who possesses land, has only to put his grain into the ground and leave it to the creative hand of nature, who will not fail in due time, by a mysterious operation, to raise it up and multiply it fifty, or an hundred fold 16; and this is all performed in the absence of the labourer. Indeed, the advantages that accrue from the possession of land, are incalculable; for example:-an acre of land contains 4840 square yards; now suppose an acre of wheat was to be manufactured after the manner of artificial flowers; each square yard containing an hundred stems of wheat, allowing only six shillings per yard to the manufacturer, the sum would amount to £1452. The whole of this immence labour is performed by the energies of an invisible hand; by the hand of nature. Is not nature the common mother of all mankind? Is not the earth the theatre on which she incessantly labours to produce plenty for all, even for the noxious reptile? Nature is no respecter of persons nor of things; the hayband that encircles the peasant's hat, is as glorious-in her eyes, as the ten thousand pound diamond hat-band was, that blazed round the head of the late Castlereagh.

Who then, are nature's favourites? Who can say that he

15 What are natural rights? Ask yourself the question, try it every way, and you will find it to be the right of conquest. To hunt or fish, you may say is a natural right; it may be so; but it is the right of conquest over other animals. If fields of corn, or trees of fruit, continually presented themselves to your gathering, you have a certain degree of labour to accomplish for your food; and if you only gather as your stomach craves, you share in common with every other animal; if you gather in store, the act is a conquest from other animals. The same principles have a very near application to man and man. R. C.

16 Or to destroy all his hopes by a blast, just as her almighty mood may come about. It is clear that Dame Nature cares nothing about us. We must take care of ourselves in spite of her.

R. C.

17 Very true, but you have said in a former part of your letter, that she owns peasants and disowns kings. As far as her benefits are in question, I had rather be disowned with the crown and million of pounds annually, than to be owned, with a hungry stomach and a clothing of haybands. 'Tis clear, that nature has no influence over human politics. R. C.

has more right to the land than I have? Possession and right are not synonimous. Possession without right18 is usurpation; and it is against usurpation that I am at war. If governments are so anxious to maintain the balance of power in Europe, why should not the people be anxious to establish a balance of power among themselves 19? Since a balance of power among the people is of much more importance, and of much more utility, than a balance of power among governments. Indeed the latter will never be attained, till the former is established. But the grand object of the governments of Europe, is not a balance of power, it is an union of powers that they wish for, that they may aid each other in the invasion of the peoples' rights, in the plunder of their property, and to trample on their liberties with impunity, as they have already done in Italy, and in Spain. And Greece, I repeat it, if she does not adopt some better system than any she has yet proclaimed, will be the next victim of the power of European balances; which unite only to destroy!

Perhaps, I may here be accused, that whilst I am exclaiming against oppression and robbery, I am advocating a system, which were it to be put in practice, would be one of the greatest robberies that can be conceived; for whilst it goes to rob a man of two or three thousand acres of land, it is proposed to allow in return the paltry profits arising from six acres, and that too out of what was his own freehold property! To such an accusation I should reply boldly, "and a plenty too." And if it must be called a robbery; is it not less criminal to rob the over-grown rich, in order to feed and clothe the half-starved, and half-naked poor; than to rob, as the present governments do, the wretched and miserable poor of more than half their earnings, to supply the rich with pernicious luxuries, and to furnish them with the means to rob the people of their rights and liberties? Let the great lords of the soil leave off plundering the people, then they may have some plea; at present they have none.

Besides, whenever was there a law enacted, that did not, by its operations, deprive somebody of property? And which deprivation the sufferers would of course call robbery.

18 Right consists of common consent, the laws of social compact: the word has no other meaning. R. C. 19 This is what is wanted. Your " AGRARIAN EQUALITY" all centres in this desired balance of power. This paragraph has brought you into an intelligible, a practicable, a common sense subject.

R. C.