“When a portion of wealth passes out of the hands of him who has acquired it, without his consent, and without compensation, to him who has not created it ... plunder is perpetrated.”[71]
“Law is common force organized to prevent injustice.”[71]
“If the law itself performs the action it ought to repress, plunder is still perpetrated under aggravated circumstances.”[71]
“To place the position itself of a landlord in an invidious light, as a man who exacts from the labours of others that for which he has neither toiled nor spun, is a most unwarrantable process of argumentation.”[70]
“It would be impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this:—the conversion of law into an instrument of plunder.”[71]
Yes, yes! All this appears to me to be just and sensible! but pardon me, I am a little obtuse. I cannot yet see that the landlord’s guilt is proven. Let us recapitulate:—
Rent does not raise the price of corn! The tenant gets value for his rent! He enters into a business contract for profit! The rent is a simple debt. To refuse it, is to steal! To assist legally at this refusal, is to be an accomplice in the theft! In this case Government is the accomplice, and the Government is a plunderer under aggravated circumstances! Moreover, it not only plunders, but demoralizes society. Mr. Gladstone represents Government. Messrs. Bright, Parnell, Davitt and Co. assist in this legalized and illegal plunder; thus demoralizing the society. The property of the landlord passes to another without his consent and without compensation! Messrs. Gladstone and Co. use that which Professor Bonamy Price terms a most “unwarrantable process of argumentation.”
Stop! Stop!! for goodness’ sake!!! My brain is getting confused; in my innocence, had I not been gravely assured that they were angels of light, patriots, philanthropists,[72] I should have mistaken Messrs. Gladstone, Bright, Parnell, Davitt, and Co. for the real criminals.
FOOTNOTES:
[63] Adam Smith, in speaking of the class of merchants and manufacturers, says:—“Their superiority over the country gentleman is not so much in their knowledge of the public interest as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that they have frequently imposed upon his generosity and persuaded him to give up his own interest and that of the public from a very simple but honest conviction that their interest, and not his, was the interest of the people.” (Wealth of Nations, Bk. I. Chap. XI.)