36 THE LAND QUESTION.
Let me go to the heart of this question by asking another question : Has or has not the child born in Ireland a right to live ? There can be but one answer, for no one would contend that it was right to drown Irish babies, or that any human law could make it right. Well, then, if every human being born in Ireland has a right to live in Ireland, these rights must be equal. If each one has a right to live, then no one can have any better right to live than any other one. There can be no dispute about this. No one will contend that it would be any less a crime to drown a baby of an Irish peasant woman than it would be to drown the baby of the proudest duchess, or that a law commanding the one would be any more justifiable than a law commanding the other.
Since, then, all the Irish people have the same equal right to life, it follows that they must all have the same equal right to the land of Ireland. If they are all in Ire- land by the same equal permission of Nature, so that no one of them can justly set up a superior claim to life than any other one of them ; so that all the rest of them could not justly say to any one of them, " You have not the same right to live as we have ; therefore we will pitch you out of Ireland into the sea ! " then they must all have the same equal rights to the elements which Nature has pro- vided for the sustaining of life to air, to water, and to land. For to deny the equal right to the elements neces- sary to the maintaining of life is to deny the equal right to life. Any law that said, " Certain babies have no right to the soil of Ireland ; therefore they shall be thrown off the soil of Ireland ; " would be precisely equivalent to a law that said, "Certain babies have no right to live; therefore they shall be thrown into the sea." And as no law or custom or agreement can justify the denial of the equal right to life, so no law or custom or agreement can justify the denial of the equal right to land.
�� �
