EDUCATION-THE LAND.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3952, 29 August 1881, Page 2

EDUCATION-THE LAND.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.)

Sir, —All great things that have ever been accomplished in the world since Opinion became the ruler of it, have been consummated by attempting measures which for years or generations, or for ages after the first attempt had not the slightest chance of success. Utopian, chimerical, wild, visionary, impracticable, dreamy, fanciful, untimely, insuperable difficulties, are a few of the highsounding claptraps that are used by the-^ sinister purposed to , conserve private ends, and frustrate all radical reforms. At such terms the timid fall back, and even the brave stand still; some leap forward prematurely and anticipate defeat, and thus the sea of corruption yawns like a hell round the vessel of redemption, and down she sinks, but even in her death struggle strives to strangle the [common enemy. Beware, land law reformers, of those who say the discussion of this question is futile or untimely, and make . it timely by discussing it. Remember that it never will become timely by mere lapse of time. It must be agitated and discussed, and those who oppose it have some sinister purpose to serve, like our present representatives, who have, or who are striving to become large land-owners. Whenever we see the question seriously and heartily discussed, it will become a warm discussion. Don't suppose that people will hear a title to what they consider their own questioned without anger or resentment —without abuse and imprecation. Be a«sured that it is as timely now as it is ever likely of itself to be, and if it gets thorougly ventilated and agitated, it will be found much more timely in the course of a few years. These doctrines will seem terrible to many, yet the man who acknowledges the nationalising and taxing land is merely assenting to the leading principles involved in the bill of Sir George Grey for local self-Government The greatest English constitutional lawyer says that a subject has only the " usufricifc," not the "absolute property" in the soil, and Sir E. Coke says he has " dominium utile," but not "dominium directum." If the land was no one's own at the beginning, it could never become any one's own afterwards, inasmuch as each individual had as good a right Jo cultivate a portion of it as his neighbor, and each individual would continue to have that right. The right therefore to cultivate land and appropriate its produce is not absolute. No man has a right according to the principle proposed, to cutivate more than a certain portion of land, a portion bearing the same proportion to all the land in the colony, that he himself may bear to all the people in the colony. JNow if cultivating the land does not give a man an absolute property to, or an exclusive ownership in the soil, what does ? Discovery does not constitute such a title, because there is no country uuder Heaven that has not been occupied from time immemorial. Africa was occupied when Spain discovered it, aud Australia when the Eng» lish went there ; Tahiti, when the French, landed, was found peopled, and there is, in fact, no record in the world's history of an unoccupied country. But suppose there was —how can it be proved that the discjvery gives the discoverers an exclusive title to it? It might as weli.be maintained ttiat any discovery in nature —a planet for instance —gires the right to personal claim. The discorerer of unoccupied land would have a right to dwelling, to cultivating, and the produce of his skill and labor, but neither of these would constitute absolute ownership; for any other discoverer, at any subsequent time, would have the same rights if there was roam for him. If it is contended that there is a law regulating such things, we ask where it is? aud he wfio made it? If not a divine law, what man and what | right had he to make it ? and was his right better than ours to make an opposite law ? Surely we are no more bound to observe his law than he ours !! The title by discovery is therefore a false, a worthless title. Discovery of an uninhabited land, still less the discovery of inhabited countries, gives no exclusive right or title to them. Thus the English have no exclusive right to Australia, New Zealand, or any other country by virtue of discovery, as by parity of reason the discovery of England by Australians and New Zealanders would make England their property. If discovery does not constitute title, does civilisation ? If so, what is the standard of it ? The Chinese and American Indians would contend respectively that they are civilised compared with England and Spain, but really this mode of decision involves a false an(j^ wicked principle for the man or the * nation that could adopt and act upon the plan of taking another people's country, when they have enough land at home, ought not to be considered civilised, but regarded as the most savage and barbarous of their race. —I am, &c, Bon Ami. Thames, 22nd August, 1881.