OPEN LETTER TO POPE LEO XIH. 33
in particular, leaving the limits of our separate possession to be fixed by ourselves, I being the eldest took the whole field in exclusive ownership. But in doing so I Tiave not deprived my brothers of their support from it, for I have let them work for me on it, paying them from the produce as much wages as I would have had to pay strangers. Is there any reason why my conscience should not be clear?
What would be your answer ? Would you not tell him that he was in mortal sin, and that his excuse added to his guilt? Would you not call on him to make restitu- tion and to do penance ?
Or, suppose that as a temporal prince your Holiness were ruler of a rainless land, such as Egypt, where there were no springs or brooks, their want being supplied by a bountiful river like the Nile. Supposing that having sent a number of your subjects to make fruitful this land, bidding them do justly and prosper, you were told that some of them had set up a claim of ownership in the river, refusing the others a drop of water, except as they bought it of them ; and that thus they had become rich without work, while the others, though working hard, were so impoverished by paying for water as to be hardly able to exist ?
Would not your indignation wax hot when this was told ?
Suppose that then the river-owners should send to you and thus excuse their action :
The river, though divided among private owners, ceases not thereby to minister to the needs of all, for there is no one who drinks who does not drink of the water of the river. Those who do not pos- sess the water of the river contribute their labor to get it ; so that it may be truly said that all water is supplied either from one's own river, or from some laborious industry which is paid for either in the water, or in that which is exchanged for the water.
Would the indignation of your Holiness be abated? Would it not wax fiercer yet for the insult to your intel- ligence of this excuse ?
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