In many cases the primitive joint ownership is even found applied to the produce, as among the Iroquois (Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker , III, p. 128); at Lukunor in the Caroline Islands (Waitz, v.2, p.117); among the Malays(Waltz, v.5,141,149); among most Negro tribes; among the Kabardes of the Caucasus, according to Bastian; in Alasca(Whymper, Travels in Alasca , p. 255); at Samoa (Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia , p. 284); in Circassia (Bell, Tagebuch , S. 153); among the tribes of Brazil (Von Martins, Rechtszustände der Ureinwohner Brasiliens , p. 34); in theislands of the New Hebrides (Meinicke, Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans , i. p. 202); among the tribes of the Dravidian race; inIndia, and among the tribes of North-West Africa (Munzinger, Ostafricanische Studien , p.493).
CORRIGENDA.
Pp. 10, note, 19, 21, 23, 24, 26. For J. von Reussler, read J. von Keussler. P. 83. For Rowalewaky, read Kowalewsky. P.
113,1. 15. For Le sol de la culture en Prusse, read Le sol et la culture; and add the German title, Der Boden despreussischen Staates.
1. Dictionnaire de l'Economie polit ., voce Propriété .
2. M. Thiers, it is true, has not been stopped by certain contradictions. "To every one," he says, " for his labour, because ofhis labour and in proportion to his labour. We may therefore say dogmatically: The indestructible basis of the right ofproperty is labour ." Further on he adds: "In order to labour, man must first seize the material for his labour, that is the land,the indispensable material of agricultural labour, which makes occupation the first act necessary to the commencement ofproperty, and labour the second." Finally he says again: "Every society originally presents the phenomenon of an occupationmore or less violent, gradually succeeded by the phenomenon of regular transmission by way of exchange for the legitimatefruits of some labour." Thus the robber need only exchange his spoil for "the legitimate fruit of some labour," to become thelegal proprietor. Property has, therefore, for its origin, according to M. Thiers, now labour, now occupation, now robberylegitimated by exchange! Elsewhere he describes a man fishing and growing corn, who says: "This fish for which I havefished with so much patience, and this bread which I have made with such exertion, to whom do they belong?" The humanrace will answer: "They are mine." De la Propriété , p. 58. And everywhere human laws will attribute the greater part of thisfish or this bread, not to him who has gathered them by his toil, but to him who has granted the labourer permission to fishor to till Thus evidently M. Thiers destroys the basis of quiritary ownership, which he strives to defend.
3. Polit. tirée de l'Ecrit ., Lib. i. Art. 5, 4 propos.
4. Esprit des Lois , Lib. xxvi. c. 15Léon Faucher (see Propriété in the Dictionnaire de l'Economie politique ) replies thatthis primitive community of goods has never been found in a state of nature. The most savage tribes, he says, know minefrom thine. Undoubtedly: but Montesquieu was speaking of landed property; and this was collective in primitive timeseverywhere.
5. Mayns, Cours de droit romain , 2e Edit. p. 682.
6. The theory of property has never been so well treated as in the excellent work of M. Adolph Wagner, and M. ErwinNasse, Lehrbuch der politischen Oeconomie, i. Grundlegung .According to M. Wagner we must always distinguishbetween the objects to which property is applied, because it should not be the same for arable laud, forests, mines, streams.
capital and produce. M. Wagner adopts the "legal" theory, that is to say, he derives property from the law. Undoubtedly it isthe decree of the legislator which establishes property and the right of inheritance: but what ought the legislator to decree?
This is the question we have to decide. We must therefore go back to the necessities which determine what should be law.
M. A. Samter, a banker of Königsberg, adopts the same system as M. Wagner. Sec his remarkable works, Die Social-Lehreand Gesellschaftliches-und-privat-Eigenthum , Leipzig. 1877. M. Samter is of opinion that the soil, as well as mines androads, should belong to the state and the communes, so as to counterbalance the power of private property, the rights ofwhich are much greater, more exclusive and less limited than formerly.
7. Rights are only absolute within the limits determined by reason and general utility. Property is never an absolute right inthe sense of conferring an arbitrary power. The power of disposing of objects is always limited by the same end for whichproperty was originally introduced, that is general utility, or, as the Roman law expresses it, extends quatenus juris ratiopatitur . The first German civil jurist, Ihering, thus epitomizes the facts of history: "There is no such thing as absoluteproperty,as property, that is, independent of the consideration of the interests of the community; and history has taken careto inculcate this maxim into the minds of all nations." Geist des röm. Rechts , i. 67.
