satisfied. The tenant, by improving the land, has imparted a new value
to the property; he, therefore, has a right to a part of the property.
If the farm was originally worth one hundred thousand francs, and if
by the labor of the tenant its value has risen to one hundred and fifty
thousand francs, the tenant, who produced this extra value, is the
legitimate proprietor of one-third of the farm. M. Ch. Comte could not
have pronounced this doctrine false, for it was he who said:--

"Men who increase the fertility of the earth are no less useful to their
fellow-men, than if they should create new land."

Why, then, is not this rule applicable to the man who improves the land,
as well as to him who clears it? The labor of the former makes the land
worth one; that of the latter makes it worth two: both create equal
values. Why not accord to both equal property? I defy any one to
refute this argument, without again falling back on the right of first
occupancy.

"But," it will be said, "even if your wish should be granted, property
would not be distributed much more evenly than now. Land does not go on
increasing in value for ever; after two or three seasons it attains its
maximum fertility. That which is added by the agricultural art results
rather from the progress of science and the diffusion of knowledge, than
from the skill of the cultivator. Consequently, the addition of a
few laborers to the mass of proprietors would be no argument against
property."

This discussion would, indeed, prove a well-nigh useless one, if our
labors culminated in simply extending land-privilege and industrial
monopoly; in emancipating only a few hundred laborers out of the
millions of proletaires. But this also is a misconception of our real
thought, and does but prove the general lack of intelligence and logic.

If the laborer, who adds to the value of a thing, has a right of
property in it, he who maintains this value acquires the same right.
For what is maintenance? It is incessant addition,--continuous creation.
What is it to cultivate? It is to give the soil its value every year;
it is, by annually renewed creation, to prevent the diminution or
destruction of the value of a piece of land. Admitting, then, that
property is rational and legitimate,--admitting that rent is equitable
and just,--I say that he who cultivates acquires property by as good a
title as he who clears, or he who improves; and that every time a tenant
pays h