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Nation Making, a story of New Zealand

Chapter XXXI. — Property versusMan

page 281

Chapter XXXI.
Property versusMan.

Nation Making a Gradual Movement.—England the greatest Temple of Freedom.—But perfect?—No.—Rights of Property more secure than Rights of Man.—A Relic of Feudalism.—A Man for a Sheep.—Balance held Unfairly.—Six months in Prison for begging.—Forty-eight hours for beating a wife.—Three Estates seized for One.—The Money-lender versus the Man.—The Man Loses.—Property King, Man a Serf.—Philistines and Fashionable Philosophy.—A Crime against Humanity.—A Revolt and a Remedy.—Darwinian Doctrine.—The Wealth of the World to the Strongest.

Nation Making in England has been a very gradual movement, neither springing from the genius of one great statesman, nor yet from the commanding word of a victorious general. It has been a growth through long ages of action and reaction. In no sense has it been a paper production, or of any denned pattern. Architects and builders have hewed, fashioned, pulled down and built up the rude material Cæsar found in British forests. Metaphorically speaking, many a Roman pavement, many a Saxon buttress, many a Norman arch attest the handiwork of the builders in fashioning the Celtic page 282grit, which remains now, as then, the main constituent of the English Nation.

Full of incongruities the edifice may be, of no one order, a displacement here, a restoration there it stands to-day, as it has stood for ages, the greatest and the strongest temple of freedom the world has ever seen.

But perfect? No.

What human structure can be? Retaining much that is noble, grand and free, it has presented, and still presents many a time-worn usage, many an antique deformity, many an ancient injustice, of which the advancing intelligence of the age demands the removal.

One of the most deep-seated of these, is that English Law—an inheritance from feudal times—is more careful for what it calls, the Rights of Property, than for the Rights of Man.

When the Norman robber had parcelled Saxon England amongst his armed retainers, offences against 'Property' were punished with a severity unknown in Saxon times, whilst offences against the 'Person' were lightly dealt with. Modified somewhat by the long struggle between the Kings and Barons; still further relaxed by the 'Wars of the Roses;' amelioration making great progress under Cromwell and the Puritans,—it remained for our own times to abolish the penalty of death for stealing a sheep, and transportation for shooting a rabbit.

Still, after these small ameliorations, how much remains to be done in what we call free England, page 283before English Law can be said to hold the balance justly between Property and Man.

In the United Kingdom and throughout the English Colonies, the Rights of Property are paramount, the Rights of Man of secondary importance. The records of every police office tell the well-known story of Property protected, and Man and Woman left too often, practically defenceless.

In proof of this, I may refer to the instance in a Scottish Court cited in another Chapter, of a poor starving boy being sent to prison for sixty days for stealing two shillings; whilst a man, for a second offence of beating his wife nearly to death, was sent to jail for twenty days.

Not that we are much better in the Colonies. We are just as unmerciful in our regard for what we call the Rights of Property, just as callous towards the Rights of Man as the people of the United Kingdom, as the following instances will show.

Not many months ago, in a Colonial city, an old man was charged at one of the Courts with vagrancy, and with having no visible means of support, beyond begging. He was sent to prison for six months. He was over seventy years of age, too feeble to work, was an old soldier, and had fought England's battles all over the world.

In the same Court, on the same day, a man—no, a brute—was charged with wife-beating, and sentenced to forty-eight hours' imprisonment. And this in a Colony ruled by universal suffrage—so difficult is it, for Englishmen to abandon the usages of a bygone page 284age. Nothing but the ingrained respect for Law—even when unjust—prolongs the existence of the acts of injustice recounted in this Chapter. If they were the deeds of a despot, they would be resented and remedied, but so great is our liking for old customs; so bound are we by musty precedents and feudal usages; so utterly destitute of consideration for others, more especially the feeble and helpless; so devoted to money making are we, that we permit such shameful laws to stain our Statute Book.

What are we to say of the law of 'distress and replevin'—another feudal relic—by which, when a tenant of some humble home fails to pay his weekly rent, a bailiff may be put in possession. If the rent and bailiff's fees be not paid at once, his scanty furniture can be carted away and sold in five days. In this kind of terror and slavery, many of the humble poor pass their lives.

If more need be said, look at the arbitrary powers embodied in every bill of sale, in every mortgage deed, and in many other directions, where Man goes to the wall in contests against Property.

Take as an instance, a case where a man possessed of three estates of the estimated value of 3,000l., 2,000l., and 1,000l., desires to borrow 2,000l. on the first estate. The money-lender has the property valued by his own valuer, usually at the cost of the borrower. If satisfactory, he advances the 2,000l., and becomes the mortgagee of the first estate. Let us page 285now suppose, that owing to a long period of depression, prices of produce from the land fall, so that the borrower fails to pay the interest, and the land has become reduced in value.

The money-lender sets the Law to work, and sells the mortgaged estate for 1,000l., buying it in for that amount. The money-lender next proceeds to recover the balance of 1,000l. by process of Law, and attaches the second and third estates, sells the second property for 500l., buying it through the Court at that sum. He next sells in a similar way the third estate, which realizes, say 300l., which he buys in as before, leaving 200l. still due from the debtor. The money-lender finally attaches, and sells the household furniture of the debtor, to recover the balance still due.

This has all been done according to the Law, in that case made and provided, with the result, that the money-lender has sold (and bought) the three estates and the furniture of his debtor to recover the sum advanced on the first estate.

Now, seeing that the money-lender advanced the money on his own valuer's report, having the option of refusal to lend; the final result, though strictly according to Law, is manifestly inequitable and unjust.

By the simple provision, that the Property upon which a sum of money is advanced, shall be the only security for it, without recourse to any other property the borrower may hold, a great injustice would be removed, and a cruel wrong prevented.

How much longer will such relics of feudalism be page 286permitted to stain English Law? Nation Making on honest lines has evidently some work yet to do throughout the English world.

During the last century, as I have elsewhere endeavoured to show, Invention and Capital have had a free hand in developing the Factory system, the Company system, and the Sweating system; with the result, that the most abject poverty dwells side by side with unbounded wealth; that starvation exists in the midst of plenty; that Property is King and Man little better than a slave.

Darwin's new gospel of 'the survival of the fittest' may satisfy the conscience of the Philistine and the Pharisee in their struggles to be rich; but though, for a time, it may continue to be the fashionable philosophy of the day—inasmuch as it justifies tyranny and wrong on the condition that they survive and succeed,—it is nothing less than a crime against Humanity. For the first time in the history of Science—so called—crime has been provided with an incentive, and furnished with a justification.

In a day perhaps not very distant, one of two courses may be adopted by those who have the power; either, they will revolt against, and remedy the injustice of the Law, or, they will apply the Darwinian doctrine to those who now hold so large a proportion of the wealth of the world.