Without pausing to dwell on the objection that land cannot be improved beyond a certain point, and that, at the reaching of that point, farther claim to tenure would cease, on Mr. Mill's principle—take even this admission, with its proper subsequent conclusion, that "in no sound theory of private property was it ever contemplated that the proprietor of land should be merely a sinecurist quartered on it." Now, had that conclusion been farther followed, it would have compelled the admission that all rent was unjustifiable which normally maintained any person in idleness; which is indeed the whole truth of the matter. But Mr. Mill instantly retreats from this perilous admission; and after three or four pages of discussion (quite accurate for its part) of the limits of power in management of the land itself (which apply just as strictly to the peasant proprietor as to the cottier's landlord), he begs the whole question at issue in one brief sentence, slipped cunningly into the middle of a long one which appears to be telling all the other way, and in which the fatal assertion (of the right to rent) nestles itself, as if it had been already proved,—thus—I italicize the unproved assertion in which the venom of the entire falsehood is concentrated.
"Even in the case of cultivated land, a man whom, though only one among millions, the law permits to hold thousands of acres as his single share, is not entitled to think that all is given to him to use and abuse, and deal with it as if it concerned nobody but himself. The rents or profits which he can obtain from it are his, and his only; but with regard to the land, in everything which he abstains from doing, he is morally bound, and should, whenever the case admits, be legally compelled to make his interest and pleasure consistent with the public good."
157. I say, this sentence in italics is slipped cunningly into the long sentence, as if it were of no great consequence; and above I have expressed my belief that Mr. Mill's equivocations on this subject are wilful. It is a grave accusation; but I cannot, by any stretch of charity, attribute these misrepresentations to absolute dulness and bluntness of brain, either in Mr. Mill or his follower, Mr. Fawcett. Mr. Mill is capable of immense involuntary error; but his involuntary errors are usually owing to his seeing only one or two of the many sides of a thing; not to obscure sight of the side he does see. Thus his 'Essay on Liberty' only takes cognizance of facts that make for liberty, and of none that make for restraint. But in its statement of all that can be said for liberty, it is so clear and keen, that I have myself quoted it before now as the best authority on that side. And, if arguing in favor of Rent, absolutely, and with clear explanation of what it was, he had then defended it with all his might, I should have attributed to him only the honest shortsightedness of partisanship; but when I find his defining sentences full of subtle entanglement and reserve—and that reserve held throughout his treatment of this particular subject,—I cannot, whether I utter the suspicion or not, keep the sense of wilfulness in the misrepresentation from remaining in my mind. And if there be indeed ground for this blame, and Mr. Mill, for fear of fostering political agitation,[C] has disguised what he knows to be the facts about rent, I would ask him as one of the leading members of the Jamaica Committee, which is the greater crime, boldly to sign warrant for the sudden death of one man, known to be an agitator, in the immediate outbreak of such agitation, or, by equivocation in a scientific work, to sign warrants for the deaths of thousands of men in slow misery, for fear of an agitation which has not begun; and if begun, would be carried on by debate, not by the sword?
[A] See § 156.
[B] Compare 'Fors Clavigera,' Letter XXI., page 22.
[C] With at last the natural consequences of cowardice,—nitro-glycerine and fire-balls! Let the upper classes speak the truth about themselves boldly, and they will know how to defend themselves fearlessly. It is equivocation in principle, and dereliction from duty, which melt at last into tears in a mob's presence.—(Dec. 16th, 1867.)
LETTER XXIV.
THE OFFICE OF THE SOLDIER.
April 22, 1867.