Sacramento daily record-union., 1881-11-14
TIE ULTIMATE owaERsHrp OF LAND.

peculiar way to the people" The only
ground upon which this can be put is that
Ireland was conquered some seven hundred
years ago. The position, however, that
because this was the case therefore
the land of ireland does not belong to its
putative owners as much as the land any
where belongs to its putative owners, is a
complete non sequitur. If it were
sought to trace back the ownership of the
land in every country through seven
centuries, it would be found impossible to
achieve the feat. and it would be per-
fectly useless if it could be done, since the
original wrong involved in the conquest Of
land would be magniied ten thousandfold
by any serious endeavor to undo it. The
case of Ireland, moreover, is in all essen
tials the case of every other country.
Take England as an illustration. Let US
suppose the same proposition made there,
namely, that the land belongs to the peo-
pie, because it was originally taken from
the people. Now what is the connection
between the first owners of British land
and the present British populace? Itwould
be very difficult to show that there was
any at all. The ancient Britons were
Celts. They were overcome first by the
Romans, second by the Teutons, third by
the Normaus. The Britons gave way to
the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Upon these
the Danes and Norwegians were superim-
posed, together with sprinkling of Picts
and Scots. Then came the Normans and
made new division of the land, and ulti-
mately Angles, Britons, Jutes, Danes,
Normans and all became fused together
and produced the Englishman of to-day.
How would it be possible to ascertain to
whom the land belonged among all these
confused and conflicting events?
The early Britons might be posted as
the legitimate heirs, but where are the de-
scendants of the early Britons? They
either were killed out in the inceseant
wars OF the first centuries Of our era, or
they were absorbed. The predominant
characteristics OF the English people of
to-day are derived, not from the Britons,
but from the Teutonic conquerors of the
Britons, the Angles, the Saxons, and the
Jutes, and these Teutonic tribes certainly
| had no other title to the land than that
which their swords gave them. The
Norman conquest conferred precisely the
same kind CT title. But from the fourth
century to the twelfth the whole Of En-
gland was being fought over again and
again by fresh hordes of invaders, who
came to plunder, remained to colonize, and
in turn resisted foreign encroachments.
Nothing could be more hopeless than to
extract from this prolonged revolution any
basis for the application of the new tangled
doctrine that the land belongs to the peo-
pie. Nor is the case of Ireland very
greatly different from that of England.
Its lands had changed hands half dozen
times before the island was conquered by
the English. Dane and Norman had left
their marks on Irish as we'll as English
soil. And as time passed the people changed
greatly. The introduction of Scotch settle.
ments altered the character of the popula-
tion Of the North permanently. The Nor
man families that had settled in the couu-
try as conquerors became naturalized, and
in after years were often among the fercest
foes of the country whence they sprang.
Nor must it be forgotten that history
does not show period when the Irish
people owned the land. As far back as
the history of the island can be traced
the land was held in masses by number
of great and lesser chieftains or kings. and
the people were not land owners at all.
To restore the ancient custom therefore
would not be to give the land to the
people, but merely to revive condition of
barbarism and semi-anarchy. Since the
passage of the Encountered Estates Act in
the early part of this century great revo-
luton in Irish landlordism has taken
place, moreover. The old class of hard
drinking and hard-riding Squires has vir-
tually disappeared, and has been sup
planted by men of more capital and
greater productive and business capacity.
For the most part the new purchasers of
the old estates were Irishmen, too, and
the number OF alien landholders has been
steadily diminishing for the last half
century. The men who now hold the land
have in short the same kind of title that
is possessed by the owners of all other
land, and most certainly they have in all
respects better titles than can be given by
the Government of the United States to
any of its citizens.
For how did the people of the United
States acquire the land they now call their
own? The answer is that they seized, that
is to say stole it, or conquered it, from its
original possessors, the Indians As to the
various treaties by which semblance Of
peaceable exchange for sundry tracts has
been acquired, it is evident that no valu-
able consideration was given in any of
these cases, and that therefore they only
represent the superior chicanery of the
white man. But if the new doctrine is to
be seriously maintained it is necessary to
point out that whereas so many changes
have taken place in Europe as to make the
tracing out of the original ownership of
the land practically impossible, no such
difficulties exist here. We are in fact but
one remove from the original, and accord.
ing to the new theory, the real, owners of
the land, and nothing can be easier than to
establish the superiority of their title. The
people who now hold this continent cannot
show any valid warrant for their posses
sion. They are simply invaders, and they
hold by the arbitrary right of conquest
alone. And since this has been the orig
inal tenure throughout the civilized world,
and since it is impossible to find any con.
siderable nation or race which has not
undergone similar changes to those which
have occurred in Ireland, it will be neces.