William Ogilvie, The Right of Property in Land, 1781.
SECTION III
Of Circumstances which might induce the Rulers of a State to turn their wishes and endeavours towards the accomplishment of such a Change.57. Such occasions and incidents, as those before enumerated, might be improved by the sovereign, the legislature, or the real patriots of any country, for introducing by degrees this important innovation, it being supposed that they are beforehand fully apprized of its great utility, and animated by a warm desire of seeing it effectually established for the advantage of the community.1
Other occurrences and aspects of affairs tend to inspire with such generous desires either the sovereign or some considerable bodies of men in the State, capable of exerting powerful efforts in so laudable a cause, and with the desire may communicate the hope also of being able to accomplish some salutary changes of greater or of less importance, especially if the object to be aimed at, and the means by which it may be obtained, have been again and again stated to the public in a variety of speculative views, and so rendered familiar to the understandings of men.
Internal convulsions have arisen in many countries by which the decisive power of the State has been thrown, for a short while at least, into the hands of the collective body of the people. In these junctures they might have obtained a just re-establishment of their natural rights to independence of cultivation and to property in land, had they been themselves aware of their title to such rights, and had there been any leaders prepared to direct them in the mode of stating their just claim, and supporting it with necessary firmness and becoming moderation. -- Such was the revolution in 1688, at which time, surely, an article declarative of the natural right of property in land might have been inserted into the Bill of Rights, had the people at large been beforehand taught to understand that they were possessed of any such claim. Such also was the late convulsion in America, the favourable opportunities of which are not yet exhausted; and whatever party shall hereafter in the agitations of any state assume the patronage of the lower classes, in respect of this their most essential privilege, may entertain confident hopes of being able by their support to obtain their own particular object of pursuit, while at the same time they establish an arrangement of the highest importance to the general welfare of their fellow-citizens.
58. Princes sitting on disputed thrones might, among other expedients for giving additional security to their possession, consider whether it would not prove of advantage that the numerous class of cultivators were interested in their cause by some well-regulated communication of equal right; and on the other hand, the expelled candidate might not unwisely seize the same occasion of strengthening his interest and increasing the number of his adherents, if it were left not preoccupied by his more fortunate antagonist.
In such cases as these, when the minds of the vulgar are to be suddenly engaged, it is perhaps more expedient not to propose a refined system, having for its object the greatest good that can be reconciled to the greatest supposed equity, or to the general convenience of all, but to hold forth some striking advantages to great bodies of men, who may feel that they have a common interest, and are not incapable of being taught to act together in concert, for promoting it; to promise, for example, that every farm, as presently possessed, shall be converted into a freehold, vested in the farmer and his heirs for ever.
59. Difference of religious opinions, it may be hoped, will never again be made, as it has too often been, an occasion of disturbing the civil societies of mankind; but if any respectable body of dissidents find themselves obliged to contend with the rulers of their country for the rights and immunities of a just toleration; if the leaders of the sect shall think proper to avow and inculcate principles of civil policy and justice favourable to the rights of the lower classes, and to the independence of cultivation, they may be well assured of strengthening their party thereby, of inspiring their adherents with more vigour and consistency, and of obtaining in process of time both the one and the other of these just and important objects of pursuit. These objects they will attain the sooner, and with more ease, the more cautiously they guard against the insinuation of that levelling and fanatic principle which has sometimes brought disgrace in the first place, and final disappointment in the end, on schemes wisely conceived, or bravery undertaken for restoring the rights of mankind.
It is supposed by many intelligent persons that, partly through the increase of infidelity, and partly from the prevailing moderation of wise men's opinions respecting disputable tenets of religion, the ecclesiastical order have of late lost much of that ascendant which they seem formerly to have possessed over the higher classes of men, so that in almost every country of Europe, under every form of the Christian religion, their establishments are either secretly envied and undermined, or very avowedly attacked; and it may be apprehended that a crisis of great danger to their temporal rights and privileges cannot be far distant. It might, therefore, be accounted no unnecessary provision for their own safety, and very liberal policy with regard to the general interests of mankind, should this respected order attach themselves more particularly to the inferior and laborious classes of men. These humble ranks are always found docile and obsequious to religious instructors; and in justice to the simplicity of their native sense and piety, let it be remarked also, that they are more ready to listen with attention to rational and sound doctrines than to the extravagancies of enthusiasm or superstition, if only the same zeal and assiduity is displayed by the teachers of both. It would not ill become the ministers of any Church to assume the patronage of these men (whose reliance and attachment will not fail to increase in proportion to the attention bestowed on them), and to stand forth as the advocates of their natural rights and the guardians of their independence in opposition to the opulent, the luxurious, and the idle, who in too many respects domineer over them. It would not be unwise nor improper to connect thoroughly the interests of the ecclesiastical order with those of the laborious poor, who stand perhaps more in need of the direction and guardianship of enlightened superiors than the mendicant poor themselves, whom the Church has in every country taken under her immediate protection. In most cases, the mendicant poor would be sufficiently provided for by the charity of those very orders of men by whom the far more numerous class of laborious poor are oppressed.
That sort of correspondence and co-operation which might be denominated an alliance between the Church and the Plough, in subordination to the State, would not only prove equally beneficial to both parties, but seems in the present state of Europe to have become necessary for the support of their mutual interests.
60. Great public calamities and disasters may dispose the rulers of a state, however reluctant and averse, to seek for the renovation of national vigour and prosperity by those measures which are to be accounted the only true sources of strength, opulence, and manly virtues; by cherishing the common people, bettering their condition, and exciting their industry by such cheerful hopes and reasonable expectations as belong to their humble situation, and not by the hard pressure of necessity, so often preposterously and inhumanly recommended as the most effectual spur of industry, so often unhappily applied as such.
Under circumstances of recent public distress and humiliation, such as the unfortunate issue of expensive war, the loss of commerce and of foreign dominion, even the higher and privileged ranks, awed into wisdom and humanity by the impending gloom, may be inclined to acquiesce in those regulations which tend to renovate the whole body of the State, though at the expense of diminishing in some degree the privileges and emoluments of their own order. They will consider that, unless the numbers, the industry, and the manly temper of the body of the people can be kept up, the fortune of the community must fall into continual and accelerated decline, and the privileges of every rank become insecure. But if these essential foundations of public prosperity can be supported, and any increase of them, especially of the last, can be procured, the loss of military glory, of political rank and ascendant, even of territory and establishments, may be regarded with less regret, as the loss of external appendages only, the plumes and trappings of national honour, which may be in due time recovered again by the returning vigour of the community, if such ought to be their endeavour or desire.
If, in the meantime, commerce is restrained and manufactures decline, let the cultivation of the soil be laid open, on reasonable terms and without delay, to the people thus deprived of their usual employment; such a resource would indeed convert what they must account a misfortune into an opportunity of finding real and natural happiness and ease.
If colonies are lost, it may seem more particularly requisite to provide some new opportunities of settlement for the usual emigration. If the facility of domestic establishments is presented to their choice, that will not only prevent the turbulence of unsettled, discontented multitudes confined at home, but will apply their numbers, and call forth their industry for the augmentation of the public opulence and strength.
61. Public dangers, especially, if not sudden and transitory, but continual, as proceeding from the vicinity of powerful and ambitious neighbours, ought to produce in the rulers and the higher ranks of a nation so threatened, a similar disposition of recurring to the genuine sources of public opulence and force.
What more effectual preparation can be made for the most vigorous defence of national liberty and independence, than to interest every individual citizen more immediately and directly in the welfare of his country, by giving him a share in the property of the soil, and training him to the use of arms for its defence. The former of these means of public security and defence is scarcely less requisite than the latter, the propriety of which is so generally understood.
A great standing army may be sufficient for the purposes of ambition, and for carrying offensive war into foreign states, but if resistance is to be made at home, and a prolonged defence to be maintained against a more powerful invader, the discipline of standing forces, however perfect, must be combined with, and sustained by, the zealous patriotism of a militia. The King of Prussia, beset by hostile powers naturally superior in strength, has set the first example of a military establishment modelled on this plan; an example which deserves to be imitated, and will not fail to be so by every potentate in the same perilous situation. The time seems to be not very far distant, when Britain herself must trust no longer with entire reliance to her wooden walls, even in time of peace, but must keep in continual array a land army proportioned in some degree to those of the continental powers. Even the greater powers themselves, by the continual augmentation of their standing armies, with an intention of invading others, approach still nearer and nearer to the establishment of a disciplined militia, as they continually increase the proportion of soldiers to unwarlike citizens; and when they begin to perceive that they themselves are at last in danger of being invaded in their turn by the powerful confederacies of neighbours, whom separately they have insulted or held in terror, they will then hasten to adopt the whole plan, in the same manner as . these neighbouring powers have already done. Thus, that continual augmentation of disciplined standing armies throughout Europe, which the friends of liberty and of mankind regard with so much anxiety and distrust, seems to tend to an ultimate state of advancement, in which every ploughman will be made a soldier, and almost every soldier remain a ploughman; a system very favourable, no doubt, to the happiness and virtue of mankind, and more particularly of the lower class; a fortunate and desirable effect, which it may be hoped will arise from so very suspicious a cause as the restless ambition of monarchs. Whenever this state of things is brought near to its maturity in any country, there will be wanting only one regulation to realize the fancied virtues and happiness of primeval ages, though without that supposed perpetual tranquillity which seems not very consistent with the highest felicity of mankind. That regulation is, that every individual thus accustomed to the use of arms, and of the instruments of tillage, should be made proprietor of the field which he cultivates.
It is of small importance whether, in this progress, the State has begun with the establishment of a militia, and afterwards trained that militia to the exact discipline and ready array of standing armies; or -- what is more new in practice and may be more willingly adopted by monarchs -- beginning with a standing army, has proceeded gradually to extend its compass, and the rotation of military services exacted, until, almost all those persons are comprehended who would belong to the plan of a militia established in the usual form, without however detaching them from their rustic labours, or interrupting that essential industry in any great degree; still the same union of the military character with that of the peasant might be accomplished in the greater number of the people, in nearly the same course of time; still the same facility and expediency will arise, of communicating to each of this majority of the citizens a competent share in the real property of the soil.
62. The state of a nation overwhelmed with debt furnishes the most urgent motives to induce all classes of men willingly to recur to those measures and schemes by which the amount of the public stock may be most effectually, and most expeditiously increased. Among these schemes, the encouragement of improving agriculture, and the increase of an industrious population by means of independent settlements must be allowed to stand foremost.
It is indeed the landed property of the nation that is ultimately and solely engaged for all national debts: every other species of property may be concealed, transferrred, or withdrawn, when the demand for payment is apprehended. It is therefore to be wished, for the security of public credit, and for facilitating the borrowing of money on good terms, when necessity requires that expedient to be pursued, that property in land were exceedingly divided; so that every person of the least consideration for property of any other kind, for industry, or for talents, had a share.
In that state of public affairs which renders the continual accumulation of national debt indispensable, it becomes even the interest of the great landholders, that such a distribution of property in land should take place, and that every member of the society should, if possible, have a share; that so every member may be rendered responsible for the public debt, and may have, though in an inferior degree, the same sort of interest with regard to it on every emergency which these great landholders have.
Such general distribution of property in land, especially if the public creditors were for the most part proprietors of land also, and in some proportion to the property possessed by them in the funds, would tend to unite in a great degree the interests and views of the debtors and creditors; and so prevent the danger of any sudden great convulsion, and the perplexities which might attend a temporary stoppage of payment. It would give at the same time the highest facility of employing the whole stock and force of the society in great and useful enterprizes, when such presented themselves, without necessarily entailing oppressive taxes on a future age.2
In order to establish, or at least to approach nearer to this the most perfect state of public credit, certain regulations might be introduced with happy effects in a well constituted monarchy; and perhaps without exciting discontent, especially if any salutary Agrarian law had been established, or a pretty general distribution of landed property been by any other means previously obtained. It might be enacted, that at fixed periods a certain considerable portion of the national debt should be divided among the landholders, in proportion to their property in land; not obliging them to pay off their proportion of the debt, but merely to advance the money for paying it off, and so to become themselves the creditors of the public (instead of being debtors to the public creditors) and to receive the interests which they formerly paid.
It may be accounted a service which the State is well entitled to require from the proprietors of land, in return for their being suffered to engross the whole original value of the soil, that when the public is over-loaded with debts, not imprudently contracted, they should be obliged, not indeed to pay those debts, but to come forward and interpose their private credit in support of that of the public; and to take their chance of such payment of annual . rents or capital as the public may afford to make. ' Such an occasional partition of the national debt must be acknowledged to be altogether consonant to justice in those nations where the representatives of the proprietors of land have alone consented to, and authorized, the contracting of such incumbrances.
At least it seems probable that, whatever measures may at any time be adopted for diminishing the public debts of a nation, or for preventing those convulsions which on critical emergencies may arise from the competition between the interests of borrowers and lenders, subjects of the same State, all such measures would be greatly facilitated by the minute partition of property in land, and a general ] distribution of it among the whole body of the people.