COLLECTIVISM  AND  LAND  NATIONALIZATION.  2$$
if  he  is  not  a  proprietor,  by  virtue  of  his  being  a  man  and  a  worker,  he
can  produce,  he  can  live,  only  by  the  permission  of  his  fellow-men  ;  he
must  fall  into  a  veritable  slavery.  It  has  been  said,  and  it  cannot  be  said
too  often,  property  is  an  absolute  condition  of  freedom.  Why,  then,  out
of  a  general  right,  build  up  a  monstrous  privilege  ?  Why  refuse  to  recognize ­
  in  humanity  the  first,  the  most  sacred  title  to  the  possession  of
things  ?”  *
According  to  Huet’s  system,  the  natural  right  to  property
would  be  realized  in  the  “  right  to  patrimony,”  by  virtue  of
which  every  person  in  a  position  to  labour  would  obtain  a
share  in  the  general  wealth.  “  Every  year  a  division  should
be  made  of  the  patrimonial  property  left  ownerless  through
deaths.  All  the  young  people  of  either  sex,  who  during
this  year  reach  the  age  of  either  fourteen  or  twenty-five  years,
should  obtain  a  share,  the  share  of  each  person  of  full  age
being  double  the  share  of  each  minor.”  The  right  of  hereditary
succession  is  abolished,  but  gifts  by  will  or  infer  vivos  are
authorized.  Each  person,  however,  can  dispose  only  of  property ­
  acquired  by  his  own  labour,  and  not  of  that  received
by  Way  of  gift  or  legacy.  This  goes  to  increase  the  common
patrimony.  “  Continuously  fed  from  an  inexhaustible  source,
^be  general  patrimony  would  be  composed,  at  any  given  time,
of  all  the  ancient  patrimonial  property  and  of  all  the  subsequent
accumulations  of  capital  ;  for  as  these  accumulations  could
only  once  change  hands  by  way  of  gift,  at  the  deaths  of  the
donees  they  would  go  to  swell  the  mass  of  the  original
patrimony.
Levelling  Socialist  as  Huet  is  when  he  claims  for  all
an  equal  right  of  accession  to  property,  he  is  a  thorough  individualist ­
  on  the  question  of  the  organization  of  labour.  He
rejects  all  State  intervention;  he  does  not  like  even  corporations ­
  holding  industrial  capital  The  individual,  put  in
possession  of  “his  patrimony,”  may  work  by  himself,  or  in
partnership  with  others,  provided  he  do  so  freely,  without  any
privileges  or  close  corporations.
*  In  support  of  his  thesis,  Huet  cites  numerous  authorities,  and  amongst
others,  Chateaubriand.  “  Wages  are  only  a  prolonged  slavery  ”  (Ess.  Hist.
^  I-iti.  Angl.,  t.  ii.  p.  392).  “Without  individual  pro¡)erty  nobody  is
uee.  Whoever  has  no  property  cannot  be  independent.  Property  is
Nothing  else  but  liberty  ”  (Mémoires  doutre-tombe).