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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

163.: PROPERTY IN LAND EXAMINER, 6 MAY, 1832, P. 295 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II [1831]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXIII - Newspaper Writings August 1831 - October 1834 Part II, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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163.

PROPERTY IN LAND

EXAMINER, 6 MAY, 1832, P. 295

This unheaded paragraph (in square brackets, here removed) is appended to a long letter to the editor, headed “Westminster Review—Landlords’ Claims,” in which “A Claimant of Justice” objects to a passage on p. 306 of “Saint-Simonianism, &c.,” Westminster Review, XVI (Apr. 1832), 279-321, by Thomas Perronet Thompson (1783-1869), Radical writer and proprietor of the review. It is described in Mill’s bibliography as “A paragraph in the same paper [as No. 162], on Property in Land, in answer to a Correspondent” (MacMinn, p. 21). In the Somerville College set of the Examiner, it is listed as “Paragraph on Property in Land, in reply to a correspondent” and enclosed in a second set of square brackets.

we agree entirely in all the doctrines of our correspondent, except the practical conclusion which they are probably intended to suggest. We cordially concur in the opinion that land, or any other possession or advantage for which the first possessor is not indebted to his own labour, but to accident or mere priority of occupation, ought to be retained and managed for the benefit of the community generally, and not granted away to individuals; but when it has been so appropriated, perhaps ages ago, it would be the height of iniquity to take it away from the possessors without full compensation. The lands of Great Britain, or of any other ancient community, have, for the most part, been acquired by the labour of the present owners, or of their progenitors; having been purchased from former proprietors, in exchange for property honestly earned by industry, and prudently accumulated by forethought and frugality. The land, therefore, considered as property, is just as much the produce of labour, as if it had been made with hands. That which was given for the land was made with hands, as fairly as any other kind of property: and the land is a mere equivalent obtained in exchange. We are speaking only of the land as a source of income; not of the land as a source of mischievous power. As far as the ownership of land gives any one an influence which it were desirable he did not possess over its cultivation, and over the interests of its inhabitants, so far, there would be no injustice in placing that kind of property on a different footing. Neither would there be any injustice in buying up all the land in the country, paying to the present proprietors its fair value. We only contend that it would be supremely unjust to take away from any person whatever, what the law has hitherto recognized as his property, without a full pecuniary equivalent. Property is made an idol in England; the sacredness of property is made a shield for every abuse; it should be clearly understood, that the State is at liberty to modify the general right of property as much as it likes; to new-model it altogether, if the public interest requires it: but never to the pecuniary injury of the present possessors, unless by a spontaneous sacrifice on their part.