The most striking of such kinds of property is that in minerals. A man buys an estate for farming, grazing, or, it may be, purposes of pleasure. Some time afterwards minerals are found beneath it, and, though he has neither placed them there nor may assist to get them out, he is privileged to charge “mining royalties” upon every ton that is raised as long as there is any to be obtained. Why should not his power in this direction be limited? He takes everything and gives nothing; the author or inventor gives everything and takes little. It would be as much for “the benefit of the community” to have the former’s minerals after a given period, with no reward to himself, as to have the latter’s books or machines. Why, then, should bullion be carefully protected and brains despoiled? If it be replied that when a man has bought a plot of ground it is his to the centre of the earth at one side and to the sky on the other, may it not be submitted that the former portion of the right ought to be restricted, while the latter certainly does not exist, for the law steps in at point after point to control his use of the land between the surface and the sky?
The State, therefore, interferes with property, as it is, in a most material degree: instances of such interference have been scattered through these pages, and the tendency of the future is likely to be towards more than less interference. And there is hardly any that can be proposed, even of the extremest kind, for which it would not be possible to find a precedent.
XXXV.—OUGHT THE STATE TO FIND FOOD AND WORK FOR ALL?
The State thus interfering with both capital and labour, it is sometimes contended that its duties ought to be so extended as to find food and work for all. There is a captivating sound about the proposition which has commended it to many without a due weighing of the probable results. It is a matter upon which a hasty generalization, though springing from the purest motives, may do vast harm, and is one, therefore, which all ought most carefully to consider before expressing an opinion upon it.
Cardinal Manning, in an article published in the winter of 1887, carried the theory of the public duty of feeding the hungry to its extremest point in these words—“All men are bound by natural obligations, if they can, to feed the hungry. But it may be said that granting the obligation in the giver does not prove a right in the receiver. To which I answer that the obligation to feed the hungry springs from the natural right of every man to life, and to the food necessary for the sustenance of life. So strict is this natural right that it prevails over all positive laws of property. Necessity has no law, and a starving man has a natural right to his neighbour’s bread.”
With all deference, the last sentence must be stated to be false, both in logic and morals. If it were true, it would justify immediate raids by the starving upon the nearest baker’s shop, and one wonders what the Cardinal would say if he happened to be the baker. Granting that every one has a right to live, there is no equivalent right to live at other people’s expense. It is true that, by our Poor Law, a system has been created by which no one need starve, but that does not justify the theft of bread. There is a preliminary question to be put even in the case of the starving, and that is as to why they are in that condition. If it be because they have been idle, or drunken, or generally worthless, as in many cases it is, the mere fact that they are starving does not entitle them to sack a baker’s shop. They will be fed by the Poor Law if they take the necessary steps, but if they are able-bodied they will have to work for their food; and as most human beings have to do the same, where is the hardship?
It will be replied by some that the Poor Law works harshly towards the deserving poor, but that is an argument for amendment, not for abolition or indiscriminate extension. And if it be further said that the food supplied is meagre and the lodgings rough, it must be remembered that the poor-rate is paid by a very large number whose food is no more plentiful and whose lodgings are certainly worse. As for the argument that some people starve rather than “enter the house,” it is not easy to see what relief could be given by the State without infringing that spirit.
But there is a question most intimately affecting this matter which, though of the highest importance, cannot be discussed here as it deserves, and that is the question of population, concerning which Mill truly says, “Every one has a right to live. We will suppose this granted. But no one has a right to bring creatures into life, to be supported by other people. Whoever means to stand upon the first of these rights must renounce all pretension to the last. If a man cannot support even himself unless others help him, those others are entitled to say that they do not also undertake the support of any offspring which it is physically possible for him to summon into the world.... It would be possible for the State to guarantee employment at ample wages to all who are born. But if it does this, it is bound in self-protection, and for the sake of every purpose for which government exists, to provide that no person shall be born without its consent.... It cannot, with impunity, take the feeding upon itself and leave the multiplying free.”