Lacordaire on Property [pp. 338-347]

LACORDAIRE ON PROPER T Y.
have been enriched by thy flesh and blood, and it is just that thy
domain over it should continue, so that it may belong to thee.
I have, it is true,.the primary title to it as Creator, but I give it
up to thee; and by thus uniting that which comes from me and
that which comes from thee, the whole is thine. Thy proprietorship will not even end with thy life; thou mayest transmit it
to thy descendants, because thy descendants are thyself, because
there is unity between the father and his children; and to disinherit these from thy patrimonial lands would be to disinherit the
toils and the tears of their father. To whom else should that
land of thy pain and thy blood revert? To another who has not
labored upon it? It is better for thee to survive, and to keep it
in thy posterity."
Such, says Lacordaire, is the primitive right consecrated by
the evangelical law. The answer of the reformers, he continues, is this: " But do you not perceive the frightful inequality
which will result from that position which is apparently so simple? In a certain time, whether from incapacity of some, or from
infirmity for which man is not accountable, or from other circumstances, favorable for these, unfavorable for those, the land,
become too small and limited for its inhabitants, will be found in
the possession of a few men, who will consume it in luxury and
surfeit to the prejudice of numberless unfortunate beings re.
duced to earn their bread day by day, if even so much as the
bread necessary for each day be assured to them. Is not this a
result which condemns the principle of individual proprietorship? If the consequence be selfish, the principle is inevitably
the same. We must, then, if we love mankind, have recourse to
another distribution of property, and boldly proclaim, because it
is a duty, that labor and the land belong to society. Labor and
the land form the funds of society, the common property, the very
substance of the country; we should all devote ourselves to the
common weal, and, as the only recompense of our efforts, take a
part of the fruits proportioned to the merit of our labors. In
this way the arbitrary distinction between the poor and the rich
would cease; if any irregularity should still exist it would be
due to capacity and virtue, and not to the chances of birth, which
have pounded up together in the same vase sloth, abundance,
pride, selfishness, all vices and all rights.
"Have you not yourselves, O men of the Gospel, in your
days of holy inspirations, have you not realized that divine republic? When your missionaries founded the famous'Reduc
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