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HALL ON CIVILISATION.
49
had every man his portion of land, his wants and his necessities would naturally induce him diligently to cultivate that which he sees would infallibly supply them.[1]
But if property or wealth is power, if it appears to be, in most civilised states, a power acting over the great mass of the people, to their disadvantage; it will not be easy to show on what principle, either of justice or expediency, it can be defended.
It seems that means ought to be used to prevent any power, of what nature soever it be, from growing up in the hands of one set of subjects to oppress all the rest; and that the joining liberty and property together, as is so frequently done,
- ↑ "Property is founded on the good of society; if we abstract from that, it is entirely without foundation."—Hume's Essays, vol. ii., note T, page 253.
Does the husbandman, who works for his shilling a-day, without having any interest in the produce of his work, and knowing that eight-tenths of it will go to other people—does he, I say, work so cheerfully and industriously as he would do if he worked on his own land, and would be entitled to the whole produce—the corn, the wine, and the oil—that come from it? In the present system, the people of landed property being few in number, few only receive encouragement to industry on it, from the possession of it. The people of no property being the many, the many receive discouragement from being deprived of it.
