From the foregoing it appears that in many parts of Melanesia clearing is a modus acquirendi, viz. in the Solomon Islands, Northern New Hebrides, Banks Islands, Santa Cruz Group, New Caledonia, Gazelle Peninsula of Neu Pommern and Nissan Islands. Yet the rights of landowners are recognized everywhere in these islands. Here, as Ricardo would say, land of the second degree of fertility has already been taken into cultivation, and so rent has commenced on that of the first; but there is still free land. In Aneityum, too, there seems to be land not yet appropriated. In Fiji people destitute of land are found. Among the Western tribes of Torres Straits all arable land is divided up into properties, as Haddon tells us; but whether the rest of the land is still free is not quite clear. With regard to the Murray Islands we cannot arrive at any definite conclusion.
Generally speaking we may conclude that in Polynesia and Micronesia all land has been appropriated, whereas in the Melanesian Islands free land still exists.
We see further that not only the arable land is held as property, but often also the fruit-trees, lakes and streams, the shore and the lagoon as far as the reef. On most Polynesian and Micronesian islands whatever portion of land or water can yield any profit has been appropriated.
§ 8. Landlords, tenants and labourers in Oceania.
It appears from the foregoing paragraphs that in those islands where all land has been appropriated, there are nearly always found people destitute of land. The only exceptions are Rotuma and Pelau. Gardiner, in his very minute article on Rotuma, makes no mention of social ranks; and Kubary, as we have already seen in the second chapter of Part I, states that “among the Pelau islanders there is no question of a division of the people into ranks or classes.” But Semper, as has also been shown in the same chapter, speaks of a despised [[329]]working class[73]. Regarding the social classes on Easter Island we are not sufficiently informed.
Another state of things would not be inconceivable. It were quite possible that every inhabitant had appropriated a portion of the land, nothing of it remaining unclaimed. Yet it is easy to understand that, when all land has become individual property, a class of people destitute of land is likely soon to arise. In large families the portions falling to each of the children will often become too small to live upon. And where it is customary to buy and sell land, there may be improvident people who squander the land that was to afford them subsistence. But the principal cause probably is the arbitrary conduct of the chiefs and other men of power who appropriate the land of their enemies, and even, under some pretext, that belonging to their own subjects.
In Tahiti the chiefs had “a desire for war, as a means of enlarging their territory, and augmenting their power”[74].