XVI. Nor ought a permanent residence to be refused to foreigners, who, driven from their own country, seek a place or refuge. But then it is only upon condition that they submit to the established laws of the place, and avoid every occasion of exciting tumult and sedition. A reasonable rule, which the divine poet has observed, when he introduces Aeneas making an offer that Latinus, who had become his father-in-law, should retain all military and civil power. And in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Latinus admits the proposal of Aeneas to be just; as he came through necessity in quest of a settlement. To drive away refugees, says Strabo, from Eratosthenes, is acting like barbarians; and a conduct like this in the Spartans was also condemned. St. Ambrose passes the same sentence of condemnation upon those powers, who refuse all admission to strangers. Yet settlers of this description have no right to demand a share in the government. A proposal of this kind made by the Minyae to the Lacedaemonians, who had received them, is very properly considered by Herodotus as insolent, and unreasonable.
XVII. It is indeed but an act of common humanity in a sovereign to allow strangers, at their request, liberty to fix their residence upon any waste or barren lands within his dominions, still reserving to himself all the rights of sovereignty. Seven hundred acres of barren and uncultivated land, as Servius observes, were given by the native Latins to the Trojans. Dion Prusaeensis, in his seventh oration, says, that they commit no crime of trespass, who take upon them to cultivate waste lands. The refusal of this privilege made the Ansibarians exclaim, "the firmament over our heads is the mansion of the deity: the earth was given to man; and what remains unoccupied, lies in common to all." Yet that complaint did not apply exactly to their case. For those lands could not be called unoccupied, as they served to supply the Roman army with forage for their cattle, which certainly furnished the Romans with a just pretext for refusing to grant their request. And with no less propriety the Romans asked the Galli Senones if it were right to demand lands already possessed, and to threaten to take them by force.
XVIII. Since the COMMON RIGHT TO THINGS has been established, the COMMON RIGHT TO ACTIONS follows next in order, and this right is either absolute, or established by the supposition of a general agreement amongst mankind. Now all men have absolutely a right to do such or such acts as are necessary to provide whatever is essential to the existence or convenience of life. Convenience is included in this right; for there is no occasion here to imagine an existence of the same necessity as was requisite to authorize the seizing of another's property. Because the point of discussion here is not whether any act is done AGAINST THE WILL of an owner, but whether we acquire what is necessary for our wants ACCORDING TO THE TERMS to which the owner has agreed.[19] Supposing there is nothing illegal in the contract, nor any wilful intention on his part to make it null and void. For any impediment created by the owner in such transactions, is repugnant to the very principles of natural justice, which suppose an equality of upright dealing to subsist in both the parties concerned. St. Ambrose calls a fraudulent conduct of that kind, an attempt to deprive men of their share in the goods of a common parent, to withhold the productions of nature which are the birthright of all, and to destroy that commerce which is the very support of life. For we are not treating of superfluities and luxuries, but of those things, which are essential to life, as physic, food and cloathing.
XIX. From what has already been proved, it follows that all men have a right to purchase the necessaries of life at a reasonable price, except the owners want them for their own use. Thus in a great scarcity of corn, there would be no injustice in their refusing to sell. And yet in such a time of necessity foreigners, who have been once admitted, cannot be driven away; but as St. Ambrose shews in the passage already quoted, a common evil must be borne by all alike.
XX. Now owners have not the same right in the sale of their goods: for others are at full liberty to determine whether they will purchase certain articles or not. The ancient Belgians, for instance, allowed not wines and other foreign merchandise to be imported among them. The same rule, we are informed by Strabo, was practised by the Nabathaean Arabians.
XXI. It is supposed to be generally agreed among mankind, that the privileges, which any nation grants promiscuously to the subjects of foreign powers or countries, are the common right of all.[20] Consequently the exclusion of any one people from these rights would be considered as an injury to that people. Thus, wherever foreigners in general are allowed to hunt, to fish, to shoot, to gather pearls, to succeed to property by testament, to sell commodities, or to form intermarriages, the same privileges cannot be refused to any particular people, unless they have by misconduct forfeited their right. On which account the tribe of Benjamin was debarred from intermarrying with other tribes.
XXII. It has sometimes been a subject of inquiry whether one nation may lawfully agree with another to exclude all nations but herself from purchasing certain productions, which are the peculiar growth of her soil. An agreement which, it is evident, may be lawfully made; if the purchaser intends to supply other nations with those articles at a reasonable price. For it is a matter of indifference to other nations OF WHOM they purchase, provided they can have a reasonable supply for their wants. Nor is there any thing unlawful in allowing one people an advantage over another in this respect, particularly for a nation who has taken another under her protection and incurred expence on that account. Now such a monopoly, under the circumstances already mentioned, is no way repugnant to the law of nature,[21] though it may be sometimes for the interest of the community to prohibit it by express laws.