EDUCATION.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3939, 13 August 1881, Page 3

EDUCATION.

(To the Editor of the Eyenirg 3tab.)

Sic, —Ignorance is the principal cause of danger to persons and property. It is therefore the duty of the Government to protect persons and property hy taking care that the masses of the people shall not be grossly ignorant. To all sorts and conditions of men your leading article of the 28th ultimo forms a very appropriate and able introduction to a branch of education the study of which, in modern times, has fallen into great desuetude, if not into complete neglect. In ancient times the people were well instructed in their rights, duties, and privileges respecting the land, and recognised the honest and equitable dealing'with it a« the basis or fundamental principle of all sound social government. In the present time the terrible condition of Ireland— entering upon the first stage of civil war, with England and Scotland almost within measurable distance of insurrection—is causing the earnest attention of statesmen, reformers, and philanthropists to be concentrated on this momentous question, and numerous plans and systems are being suggested and invented for the solution of the difficulties which beset the subject. The right understanding of it, however, can only be attained by minute comprehension, patient and unprejudiced enquiry. The remedy can only be successfully applied when the nature and cause of the disease are fully known and perfectly ascertained. The " populus,' 5 or original patricians, of the ancient Roman states, until the Licinean rogation, held the public land, for which they paid one tenth of the produce for arable land, and a fifth of the produce of oliveyards and vineyards, a rate being fixed for right of pasture. This state or condition of things afforded land to all citizens upon equitable terms, but gradually the rich usurped the power of the State, in which the whole of the land was Tested, and by force of fraud and purchase got possession of the smaller holdings, becoming thus cultivators of extensive tracts. Still the land remained nationalised, or the property of the State, and the cultivators, in fact, were tenants at will. Long and uninterrupted possession, however, produced, if it did not constitute, the feeling of ownership, and the land was even transferred by sale. The State, it is true, sometimes asserted its rights, and the plebeians, being erected into a superior state, claimed a share in that part of the land, at least, acquired by conquest, and the difficulties that arose from this between the two estates were attempted to be settled by "Agrarian Laws." Spirius Cassius, Licinius Stolo, Tiberius, and Sempronius Gracchus were all great law givers upon the land question, the latter losing his life in contending for the land rights of his poorer fellow citizens. Lycurgus, amongst the Greeks, and many other wise law givers of his nation before and after his time, gave great attention to the just division or parceling out of the land, which would tend to equalise its distribution, and thus the dovians of Sparta and the conquered Aehceans, and even the Helots, had their rights considered in the division of land. The prevailing and governing principle, however, in all just legislation, from time immemorial, upon the land question is—lst, that it belonged to the State or people, and is, in fact, common property; 2nd, that no person has a right to do what he wills with the land ; 3rd, that the land which a man holds is not his own. Philosophically considered, it appears that there are four elements essentially necessary to the existence of human life, viz , earth, fire, air, and water. No man or number of men has or have a right to monopolise these or any of them to the injury of his fellow man, and with regard to the three latter, such an attempt is seldom made. True it is that sunlight and water have been taxed, but their natural properties seem to defy man's ingenuity to circum scribe, monopolise, or tax them. Not so, however, the land, which is especially common property. If it is not the people's, whose property is it ? Whose property was it at first ? Biblical records show most undoubtedly that the land was common property. It was given to the human race, and not to any particular portion of that race. It was given to the whole human family under command, and upon condition of subduing or cultivating it, and making it subservient to their support and comfort. No intimation is given in any case, or at any future period, that the earth was given to any particular individual. —I am, &c,

Bon Ami