ownership? Distasteful as it may be, to realize that what has been considered a fundamental principle of civilized society is here challenged and put upon the defensive, the fact remains that the defence must be made, and must be based only on what is just and wise to-day, for the opposing side may properly reject arguments based on the wholly different conditions under which past generations lived.
The question of the rights of property in the products of labor we may pass briefly, as it is almost undisputed; and while certain thinkers have asserted that there is no such thing as a natural right to the ownership of property of any sort, it seems certain that this is true only in a technical sense; and that a man's right to hold, control, dispose of, and enjoy the fruits of his own strength or skill is as certain as his right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and follows from that right as a natural sequence. The most radical revolutionist hardly ventures nowadays to argue against this fact. Thus, though it is recognized that private property even in one's own strength and skill must, at times, be subjected to the higher law of public necessity—as when in time of war a man may be obliged to give up his time, strength, and even life for the public welfare—in general the right to hold the results of labor as private property is well established, on the grounds both of natural right and public expediency.
But when we consider the private ownership of the gifts of Nature and of public franchises, it is apparent that we are on very different ground. These forms of property, which constitute a great proportion of the world's total wealth, are not created by labor. Nature's gifts were not stored up to enrich and benefit any one man, but the whole race. It follows, therefore, that they are always, in the first instance, public property.
The argument presented to prove any inherent right of the private owners to any form of natural wealth seem to be insufficient to prove the