DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0307
MOVEMENTS OF LABOUR.
291
the emigration of the best British workmen, and the retention of
the least valuable element in our social system. I do not know
whether the wisdom of Parliament will hereafter strive to make
their native country the most attractive home to the best hands
which we possess ; but I am quite sure that it would be worth
while to try the experiment, and equally sure that it has not been
attempted as yet.
There is, however, yet another consideration. The material
progress of a country depends on the harmony, and, if I may use
the expression, the equation of all interests, the most obvious test
•of the success being found in the prosperity of the home trade.
If obstacles are removed, the harmony and equation are developed
spontaneously. If a great injury, owing to selfishness, folly, and
indifference on the part of a government, is inflicted on a capital
industry, the esfect will be manifested in a depression of the home
trade. I do not doubt that nine-tenths of the trouble which has
been endemic in Great Britain during the last nine years or there-
abouts, is due to the calamities which have overtaken British
agriculture, calamities which will not be cured by the attempt to
establish artificial prices, but by an entire remodelling of the
mischievous law of landlord and tenant, under which the owner
is enabled to appropriate the occupiers' property or improvements.
If contracts had been entered into wisely and justly, the state
would have no need to interfere. But until we repudiate the
judge-made dictum, " cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad ccelum,"
and according to the latest gloss, " usque ad centrum terrse," there
is no hope of agricultural restoration. Sooner or later, the bona
fide^ manifest, and accessible improvements of an occupier will
have to be recognized as his property, the reality and permanence
of which no contract, other than that of bargain and sale, should
be allowed to negative. All civil communities have recognized
that there are contracts which must not be enforced, and the
contract for the occupancy of land, in which the owner of the soil
is empowered to plunder the tenant at the completion of his
•occupancy, is one of those contracts. It is, I submit, expedient
to render the country of their birth attractive to the best elements
in British industry, and I can conceive nothing which renders it
more unattractive than to inform, in the most practical way, these
291
the emigration of the best British workmen, and the retention of
the least valuable element in our social system. I do not know
whether the wisdom of Parliament will hereafter strive to make
their native country the most attractive home to the best hands
which we possess ; but I am quite sure that it would be worth
while to try the experiment, and equally sure that it has not been
attempted as yet.
There is, however, yet another consideration. The material
progress of a country depends on the harmony, and, if I may use
the expression, the equation of all interests, the most obvious test
•of the success being found in the prosperity of the home trade.
If obstacles are removed, the harmony and equation are developed
spontaneously. If a great injury, owing to selfishness, folly, and
indifference on the part of a government, is inflicted on a capital
industry, the esfect will be manifested in a depression of the home
trade. I do not doubt that nine-tenths of the trouble which has
been endemic in Great Britain during the last nine years or there-
abouts, is due to the calamities which have overtaken British
agriculture, calamities which will not be cured by the attempt to
establish artificial prices, but by an entire remodelling of the
mischievous law of landlord and tenant, under which the owner
is enabled to appropriate the occupiers' property or improvements.
If contracts had been entered into wisely and justly, the state
would have no need to interfere. But until we repudiate the
judge-made dictum, " cujus est solum, ejus est usque ad ccelum,"
and according to the latest gloss, " usque ad centrum terrse," there
is no hope of agricultural restoration. Sooner or later, the bona
fide^ manifest, and accessible improvements of an occupier will
have to be recognized as his property, the reality and permanence
of which no contract, other than that of bargain and sale, should
be allowed to negative. All civil communities have recognized
that there are contracts which must not be enforced, and the
contract for the occupancy of land, in which the owner of the soil
is empowered to plunder the tenant at the completion of his
•occupancy, is one of those contracts. It is, I submit, expedient
to render the country of their birth attractive to the best elements
in British industry, and I can conceive nothing which renders it
more unattractive than to inform, in the most practical way, these