it; he is only entitled to the exact area that he is using; and he has only a claim upon it while he is using it. The instant he ceases to use any part of it, he ceases to have any right to posses that part. That is the only just system of holding and working land. It is the natural land law that existed before the world was ever cursed with statute law; and it is the law which will live and be recognised in society when all our statute laws are forgotten.”
“But won't some greedy fellows take more land than others, while the rest will not have enough?” asked someone. “You can't expect to have people taken out of the city, and possessing all the greedy vices of city life—you can't expect to have these people acting justly towards each other, and only taking a fair share of the land. Now if everyone had a certain allotment given entirely to him by the society, or leased to him by the society, or even gratuitously allotted to him, it would prevent all the land scrambling that would be bound to exist if all the place were a sort of ‘no-man's land.’ If you didn't want to have the members always going to the law courts to redress their grievances, and all the old troubles would be repeated.”
“Not so fast,” replied Harry, “not so fast my friend. Do not conjure up thoughts of legal warfare amongst the members, because it would be one of the last things they would be likely to seek. Nobody seeks anything thing unless he sees, or fancies he sees, some advantage in it; and no sensible person appeals to the law when he thinks he can settle a thing without it. Lord Bacon wisely advised that ‘everyone should know enough of the law to keep out of it,’ and most people soon learn from experience that Bacon's advice is best. But still, under present conditions, it is sometimes wise to have recourse to the law, because we are living in a world ruled by robbers, and law is the only weapon which these robber rulers will permit us to use to fight our battles. But with these pioneers the case is entirely different. Their circumstances are just the reverse to our's. The questioner and myself, for instance, are not likely to quarrel over the use of the air in this hall which we both require for the purpose of respiration. He doesn't say, ‘Holdfast you're breathing too much air, there won't be enough for me if you persist in breathing so hard and consuming some of my share of oxygen’ (laughter). You laugh, friends, but the illustration I have made is no more grotesque than the one of my questioner has put to me. Why don't you object to my consuming so much of the air, which is equally essential to all of you as is the land? (“Because there is plenty for all.”) Not at all; there is plenty of land for all, and apparently more than enough for all the inhabitants that the world is ever likely to contain (hear, hear). So you see there is some other reason why you don't growl at the quantity of air I use. I'll tell you what it is. It's because the air isn't monopolized as the earth is. The capitalists haven't yet found out how to bottle it up and charge us for the use of it; they don't know how to secure it, or they'd have sold it to us at the rate of so much per cubic acre, and leased it to us according to law, while those who had no money would have to die for want of breath, just as they now do for want of land. The unfortunate occupants of the Black
