Landed Property and the Land Question

396. Thesis. The private, permanent, and exclusive right of dominion over external goods and over the land itself, circumscribed by just limits, flows from natural law, and therefore is legitimate, and in the present state morally necessary. - It is said:

1. the private right of dominion, i.e., dominion not only useful but full, belonging to individual men independently of the State, not to society itself: for although society can possess certain goods as its own, nevertheless the right of dominion belongs also to private persons, indeed primarily to them;

2. permanent and exclusive, in such a way that it is exercised not only transiently but in a stable manner and can be transferred to others, or also to natural heirs; and that it is so proper that the owner is able to exclude all others from his possession;

3. over external goods, whether movable or immovable, whether ordered to the new production of things, or to use or consumption;

4. circumscribed by just limits: that right is not absolute, but, like other rights, is limited by its immediate end. That end is that for which earthly things have been created, namely, that all may be able to live from them. But it is limited in three ways:

a) in a case of extreme necessity, each one can occupy that which is necessary for the support of himself and his own;
b) by reason of the common good, social authority can decree fitting laws, so that no prejudice be brought to the end of things, which is that all may be able to live from them; and at times it can restrict private dominion, or partially take it away if this is necessary for the good of the whole republic, though this last cannot be done without a grave cause, nor regularly without due compensation;
c) charity toward one's neighbor demands that the rich give to the poor out of their superfluities.

This is the doctrine of St. Thomas, which Leo XIII made his own: "Concerning an external thing two things belong to man: one of which is the power of procuring and dispensing (dominion), and as to this it is lawful that man possess things as his own...; but the other... concerning external things is the use of them, and as to this man ought not to have external things as his own, but as common, namely, so that one may easily communicate them in the necessity of others."⁹ II-II, q. 66, a. 2.

⁹ Yet this necessity of the poor man is not a right, otherwise there would be an obligation of justice; but it is a title for obtaining that they be assisted from superfluities, because superfluities by natural ordination are destined for them, in such a way that the rich have a strict obligation of giving them generously from charity.

These obligations of owners can also proceed from legal debt, inasmuch as it pertains to the common good not only that in extreme necessity all be assisted and no one be deprived of necessary things, but also that there be a good use of superfluities in society and that from superfluities there be given to the needy.¹⁰ - Whence human law, on account of the common good, can compel to this: for no one has superfluous goods except for their good use and good dispensation; and therefore society could take away the dispensation from one who does not use well, as from one unworthy. "Wherefore," says Pius XI, in the encyclical Quadragesimo anno, May 15, 1931, "what, with the reality of the common good considered, is lawful for those who possess, what is unlawful in the use of their goods, public authority, with natural and divine law always shining before it, can investigate more accurately."

¹⁰ Thus conformably to St. Thomas, q. 118, a. 4, ad 2, and to the commentaries of Cajetan. This also P. Vermeersch conceded, his confreres dissenting, while the controversy stood which arose on occasion of the book of P. Horvath, O.P., Eigentumsrecht, and of certain writings by others, concerning which see Theol.-Prakt. Quartalschrift, Linz, 1929.

5. flows from natural law, and therefore is legitimate. For it is not a primary natural right, which belongs to nature considered in itself and absolutely; but it follows by way of conclusion from the consideration of human nature, and for this reason is legitimate.¹¹

¹¹ The law of nature comprises those things which are required by the nature of things. If the nature of the things to be possessed is considered in itself and absolutely, the division of possessions is not required: there is not in them a requirement that they be possessed by one or by another, in common or in particular. Private dominion is neither required nor excluded; whence it is not against nature. Only this is required by the nature of things considered in itself, that the things to be possessed not be turned aside from their immediate and intrinsic end, which is that they serve the necessities of all men: the land does not cease, says Leo XIII, to serve the common utility of all, and there is no one who is not nourished from those things which it produces. Whence in a case of extreme necessity, private dominion ceases and all things are common: the division of possessions cannot prejudice such necessity, and from the human application of the law of nature the primary end cannot be impeded... But private dominion is of natural law according to something which follows from nature and is concluded by reasoning. Thus Pottier, o. c.

To this it is no obstacle that, according to St. Thomas and many scholastics, the right of private dominion arises from the law of nations. According to the ancients, natural law designates only that which is required by the nature of things considered according to itself and absolutely; the law of nations designates that which, not according to itself, but in order to a certain end, or in a certain supposition, is derived from the nature of things by reason, according to a certain utility, fittingness, and consequent moral necessity, as a necessary conclusion, not very remote, so that the nations easily agree in it (I-II, q. 95, a. 4). According to more recent authors, both are called natural law, namely, primary and secondary; and rightly, for according to St. Thomas, the law of nations has something of its force from the natural law (I-II, q. 95, a. 2), and "natural reason instituted it" (II-II, q. 57, a. 3, ad 3). Whence Ethics V, lect. 2: "Whatever follows from the naturally just as a conclusion, is naturally just."

6. in the present state morally necessary. A state of things is possible in which common possession in a certain place or in a certain society would sufficiently provide for the necessities and happiness of men: thus in the state of innocence or original justice, among pastoral tribes, when men are not many. But in the present condition of things, in which men with their defects commonly seek only themselves, and have little care for their neighbor and for society, and given the state of present-day civilization, in which men cannot lead a pastoral life but, being greatly multiplied, need great labor to procure necessities for themselves, private dominion is now morally necessary for the happiness and perfection of citizens and for the peace of society, as will be clear from the demonstration of the thesis.

Therefore the division of goods has arisen not from civil law, as Hobbes, Bentham, Montesquieu said; - nor from a social pact, as Grotius, Puffendorf, Heineccius held; - nor from a merely human institution, or from theft as Proudhon proclaimed, but from natural necessity. Whence Leo XIII: "to possess things privately as one's own is a right given to man by nature"; and to divide the land and to possess it privately, "the universality of the human race... has found in the very law of nature the foundation of the partition of goods, and has consecrated private possessions by the usage of all ages, as things which most of all accord with man's nature and with peaceful and tranquil living together."

If, however, the nature of things is considered not in itself but in order to the necessities of men, and they are considered together with the very nature of man, which must be regarded not in a certain ideal state but in the concrete and actual condition and according to its proper psychology, then there arises a requirement for the partition of goods which positive law must determine from natural law.

Cf. St. Thomas, II-II, q. 66, a. 2, ad 1: "Community of things is attributed to natural law, not because natural law dictates that all things are to be possessed in common and nothing is to be possessed as one's own; but because according to natural law there is no distinction of possessions, but rather according to human agreement, which belongs to positive law... Whence the property of possessions is not against natural law, but is added to natural law by the devising of human reason."

It is concluded: "The division of goods and the appropriation of things... has proceeded not according to natural law, but rather from human agreement, which pertains to positive law. Whence the property of possessions is not against natural law; but it is added to natural law by the devising of human reason" (II-II, q. 66, a. 2, ad 1), i.e., from a requirement of human nature, dependently on natural law.

397. The thesis is proved. Demonstrations are taken from the Scriptures, from Tradition, and from reason: the Scriptures and Tradition show the legitimacy of private dominion, reason also its necessity.

A. The Scriptures suppose and acknowledge the right of private dominion to be legitimate. God, in creating men, indeed handed earthly things over to them undividedly (Gen. I, 28-30), but so that they would be possessed in the manner more apt for procuring for themselves the necessary and useful things of life; but that the manner of possessing by private dominions is legitimate is shown:

1° In the Old Testament: a) the first division of goods already appears among the sons of Adam, since Abel is presented as a shepherd of sheep, offering to the Lord from the firstborn of his flock, Cain as a farmer, offering from the fruits of the earth, and afterward building a city which was his own and which he called by the name of his own son Henoch (Gen. IV, 2, 4, 17).

b) At the time of Abraham the right of private dominion already existed widely: Abraham was rich in possession of gold and silver; - Lot had flocks of sheep, and herds, and tents (Gen. XIII, 1-2, 5); fields and caves were under private dominion, since Abraham bought the field of Ephron and the double cave in it, that he might bury Sarah there when she had died (XXIII, 1-20), with a stable and permanent right indeed, so that Abraham, Isaac, Leah, and Jacob were buried there; just as Joseph was buried in the part of the field which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hemor (Jos. XXIV, 32). But pastures were common; yet when, because of the multitude of flocks, a quarrel arose between the shepherds of Abraham and of Lot, they were separated, one from his kinsman (Gen. XIII, 7-11).

c) The right of private dominion was confirmed as legitimate by the divine law itself, which not only prohibits theft but also the very covetousness of another's good (Ex. XX, 17), wherefore it strictly forbids that the boundaries by which fields are circumscribed be transferred (Deut. XIX, 14); but the earthly possessions of each family, which had been sold, could be redeemed, and when the year of the great jubilee recurred they returned to the former possessor (Lev. XXV, 23-28).

2° In the New Testament: a) Christ confirmed the law, by condemning theft; and he gave only the counsel of selling all things and giving the price to the poor (Mt. V, 3); but to those possessing he commanded the good use of goods, by generous almsgivings (XXV, 41-43).

b) The Apostles, applying the counsel of the Lord, instituted common possession of goods in the first communities (Acts IV, 34-35); nevertheless Peter himself proclaimed that the renunciation of possessions is of counsel only, not of precept, when addressing Ananias: "While it remained, did it not remain to thee, and when sold was it not in thy power?" (V, 4). Whence, when the disciples had been multiplied, community of goods did not endure, and provision was made for the necessities of the poor by collections of alms (XI, 28-30). Hence Paul admonishes that it must not be prescribed to the rich to leave their goods, but that they "not be high-minded, nor trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God..., to be rich in good works, to give readily, to communicate, to treasure up for themselves a good foundation unto the future" (I Tim. VI, 17-19).

From these it is established that, according to the Scriptures, a) the right of private property such as existed is legitimate; b) nevertheless it is in some measure limited by the precept of almsgiving.

B. The Tradition of the Church acknowledges and vindicates the right of private dominion:

1° The Church has always condemned the adversaries of private dominion: in the third century the Apostolics, who, with Augustine as witness (book On Heresies, 40), "most arrogantly called themselves by this name, because they would not receive into their communion those using marriages and possessing their own things... But these men are therefore heretics, because, separating themselves from the Church, they think that those who use these things have no hope"; - in the thirteenth century, the Waldenses, against whom Innocent III prescribed this profession of faith: "we confess and believe that those remaining in the world and possessing their own things, giving alms and other benefactions from their own things, and keeping the precepts of the Lord, are saved"; - in the fifteenth century, Wicleff and Hus, who denied the legitimacy of possessions in ecclesiastical men (Council of Constance, sess. 8, a. 10; interrog., a. 34-36); - in the nineteenth century, the Socialists, who were reproved by Pius IX (Qui pluribus, November 9, 1856), by Leo XIII proclaiming, in the encyclical Rerum novarum (May 15, 1891), that their doctrine concerning expropriation is unjust, inept, and subversive of order, and by Pius XI in the encyclical Quadragesimo anno.

2° The Fathers explain that riches are not evil nor prohibited, but are unequally given by God, so that they might be for the richer an occasion of kindness and charity, but for the poor an occasion of patience and of greater merit.

But if the celebrated preachers of the fourth¹² and fifth centuries, such as Basil, Chrysostom, Nyssen, Ambrose, etc., most eloquently proclaim that goods are common, that what is due from them is to be rendered to the poor, that all riches descend from iniquity, that those who deny alms are thieves and guilty of injury; - this is rather to be attributed to the oratorical manner of speaking.

¹² Thus, for example, Basil: "Is God unjust, who has distributed to us unequally the necessities of life? Why, when you are rich, is that man poor? Is it not certainly so that you may receive the reward of kindness and faithful dispensation, and he may be endowed with great rewards of patience?" on that passage of Luke: "I will destroy," n. 7. - And Chrysostom: St. Paul "besides knew that riches are not forbidden, if one has used them as he ought. For as I have said: wine is not an evil thing, but drunkenness is evil; so riches are not an evil thing, but avarice is evil, cupidity is evil." Whence to sell all things is a counsel, not a precept (hom. 2 to the people of Antioch, n. 5). Hence the pastors of churches do not excommunicate the rich, but urge them to assist the needy. Cf. on this argument Vermeersch, Quaestiones de Iustitia, n. 210.

For, when occasion is given, the same Fathers expressly assert the right of private dominion; - they wish goods to be common by destination and use, so that they yield to the utility of others, not so that they be possessed by all; - they hold alms as a debt of charity; - whence those who deny them are guilty of injury in the wider sense, insofar as they wound justice understood in the general or metaphorical sense, or even legal justice, the more so because in those times of plague, drought, and great calamity many were poor even in urgent necessity; - but they rightly maintain that riches are from iniquity because from original sin and the corruption of morals the division of goods became necessary, and in fact they have often had their origin from injustice and usury. Besides, the orators of the seventeenth century in France said similar things, and nevertheless most certainly admit the legitimacy of private possessions.

C. Reason demonstrates the legitimacy and at the same time the necessity of private dominion. To this end one can argue thus:

The form of dominion or government of external goods to which nature strongly inclines man, and which the common good demands, is legitimate, indeed necessary, by natural law. But such is the regime or form of private dominion in the present condition of things. Therefore.

The minor is proved as to the first part: Nature inclines man to the possession of external things, both that he may govern himself and provide for himself even for the future, and that he may provide for his children even after his death, and that he may vindicate for himself the fruit of his labor (as we demonstrated when speaking of the object of dominion, n. 168).

But nature impels the individual and private man to this, not civil society; for

a) The individual man and the family are prior in nature and in time to the State itself: "for man is older than the republic," says Leo XIII; "wherefore he must have had by nature his right to protect life and body before any city came together."

b) Society has not been constituted in order to deprive individual men and families of rights, or to restrict their activity and substitute itself for them, but to protect their rights, foster activity, and promote its exercise.

Therefore according to nature the right of dominion belongs primarily to individuals, not to the State, and therefore private dominion is legitimate.

The second part of the minor is proved: Nature demands and requires the regime which is necessary for the common good, or which appears as the one apt means by which the end may be obtained. But the regime of private dominion is morally necessary and the only apt means both for stirring up man's labor, and for procuring the progress of labor, and for preserving social peace.

Therefore the regime of private dominion is morally necessary by natural law.

The minor is proved from St. Thomas q. 66, a. 2:¹³

¹³ Cf. Aristotle, Politics, c. V.

"a) First indeed, because each one is more solicitous in procuring something which belongs to himself alone, than that which is common to all or to many: because each one, fleeing labor, leaves to another what pertains to the common, as happens in a multitude of servants.

b) In another way, because human affairs are handled in a more orderly manner (and therefore with greater care and perfection), if the proper care of procuring some thing is incumbent upon each individual;¹⁴ (whence private dominion is a stimulus of progress in labor, which progress in turn it procures by bringing in division of labor). But there would be confusion if anyone indiscriminately procured anything.

¹⁴ "Each one will increase his possession more, attending to it as his own." Politics II, lect. 4.

1. Land, like cotton, timber, or iron-ore, is a raw material wrought up by man. Land, like any other thing, becomes an article of property originally by occupation, and its value is enhanced by labour. There is no more reason why all land, or the rents of all land, should belong to the State, than why all house property, or all house rents, should belong to the State. If the people need land to live on, so do they need houses to live in, coals to burn, and shoes to wear. Socialism, once admitted, cannot be confined to land alone. It will exterminate "the lord manufacturer" as remorselessly as it exterminates the landlord.

2. Every man, it is contended, has a right to live on the fruits of the soil. The proposition is needlessly long. It should be put simply: Every man has a right to live. For as to living on the fruits of the soil, there is absolutely nothing else that man can live on. All human nutriment whatever is derived from what geologists call pulverised rocks, that is, soil. But if it is meant that every man has a right to live on the fruits of some soil or land of his own, where is the proof? So long as the fruits of the earth do not fail to reach a man's mouth, what matters it whose earth it is that grows them? Some of the richest as well as the poorest members of the community are landless men. Confiscate rent to take the place of taxation, and some of the richest men in the community will go tax-free.

3. The land on which a nation is settled, we are told, belongs to that nation. Yes, it belongs to them as individuals, yet not so that a foreigner is excluded by natural law from owning any portion of it. But the government have over the land, and over all the property upon it, what is called altum dominium, or eminent domain, which is a power of commanding private proprietors to part with their property for public purposes, with compensation, whenever compensation is possible. Thus when a railway gets its Act of Parliament, the owners through whose estates the projected line is to run are compelled by an exercise of eminent domain to sell to the company. By the same power the government in a besieged city, when hard pressed, might seize upon all the stores of food and fuel within the walls, even without compensation. Altum dominium, which is not dominion properly so called, is sufficient for all national emergencies, without making the State the universal landlord.

4. It seems impossible to imagine an emergency that would justify any government in nationalizing all the land at once without compensation. None but a wealthy government could afford the compensation requisite; and the emergency would have to be severe indeed, to make it wise of them to incur such an expense. We can imagine a government in a newly settled country starting on the understanding that all land was State land, and that all ground rents were to be paid into the State exchequer. This would amount to taking rents for taxes; and instead of a landlord in every district we should have a tax-gatherer. Probably further taxation would be necessary: in England at any rate the annual expenditure exceeds the rental by some twenty millions. Government, we may suppose, would grant leases of land: when the lease fell in, the rent would be raised for unearned increment, and lowered for decrement, but not raised for improvements effected by the tenant himself. In that case the tenant in two or three generations might be a quasi-proprietor, his rent being ridiculously small in comparison with the annual value of the holding. The improvements might be the improvements of his grandfather, or even those of a complete stranger, from whom he had bought the tenancy. Anyhow they might be the better portion of the value of the land, and would not be government property. Or would the government insist on purchasing the improvements, and look out for a new tenant paying a higher rent? Lastly, would the government themselves make such improvements as many an English landlord makes now, for love of the country about him and love of his own people?

5. It would be most difficult to prevent private property arising in land, even if it all did belong to the State to start with. "Suppose £10 paid for a piece of land for a year, and suppose the occupier said, Let me have it for ten years, and I will give you £20 a year, ought not the State to accept the offer? Then suppose he said, Give it me for ever and I will pay £30 a year? Again, ought not the State to agree? He would then be that hateful creature a landowner, subject to a rent-charge. Now suppose the State wanted to do work and had to borrow money, and suppose he offered to give for the redemption of the rent-charge a sum which could not be borrowed for less than £40 a year. Again, ought not the State to accept his offer? Yet in that case he would become a hopelessly unmitigated landlord." (Lord Bramwell.)

6. When there is an alarm of fire in a theatre, any one who could convince the audience that there was time enough for them all to file out in slow succession by the door, would avert the greatest danger that threatened them, that of being crushed and trampled on by one another. Mankind in pursuit of wealth are like a crowd rushing excitedly through a narrow place of exit. Whatever man, or body of men, or institution, or doctrine, will moderate this "love of money" ([Greek: philargyria]), which St. Paul (1 Tim. vi. 10) declares to be "the root of all evils," the same is a benefactor to the human race, preventing that cruel oppression of the poor, which comes of ruthlessly buying land, labour, everything, in the cheapest market and selling it in the dearest. The landlord who always evicts, if he is not paid the highest competition rent,—the employer who brings in from afar the hands that will work at the lowest starvation wage,—these vultures are worse enemies to society than Socialists, for they occasion Socialism.

7. Socialism, whether in land alone or in all capital, is an endeavour to accomplish by State control the results that ought to be achieved by private virtue. A landlord, or an employer, who remembers his position as being what Homer calls "a king of men," [Greek: anax andron],—remembers too, with Aristotle, that a prince exists for his people,—and who, besides a quasi-royal care for the body of tenantry or workmen over whom he presides, has something too of a fatherly interest in every one of them, their persons and their families, holding it to be a personal tie with himself, to be in his employment or settled upon his land,—such a man and the multitude of such men form the best bulwark a country can possess against Socialism. Such a landlord or employer is a praesens numen to his workpeople or tenants. In the absence of this protective, personal influence of the rich over the poor; in the disorganization of society consequent upon the misconduct of its subordinate chiefs; in the stand-off attitude of the higher classes, and the defiant independence of the lower; and in the greed of material goods that is common to them both, there lurks a danger of unknown magnitude to our modern civilization.

Reading.—Leo XIII. on the Condition of Labour, Encyclical of 15th May, 1891.^{20 20} "The right of property attaches to things produced by labour, but cannot attach to things created by God." So Henry George, Condition of Labour, pp. 3, 4. How then do we read in Progress and Poverty, bk. 7. ch. 1: "The pen with which I am writing is justly mine," and that, in the last resort, on account of "the rights of those who dug the material from the ground and converted it into a pen"? Was not that material, iron-ore, "created by God," equally with any other portion of the earth's crust that we may please to call land?