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 recog 
nize 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 pro 
perty 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 indi 
vidualist on the question of the organization of labour. He 
rejects all State intervention; he does not like even cor 
porations 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).