sor Fawcett, at page 112 of the last edition
of his _Political Economy_:--

"Every country has probably been subjugated, and grants of
vanquished territory were the ordinary rewards which the
conquering chief bestowed upon his more distinguished
followers. Lands obtained by force had to be defended by
force; and before law had asserted her supremacy, and
property was made secure, no baron was able to retain his
possessions, unless those who lived on his estates were
prepared to defend them....[9] As property became secure,
and landlords felt that the power of the State would protect
them in all the rights of property, every vestige of these
feudal tenures was abolished, and the relation between
landlord and tenant has thus become purely commercial. A
landlord offers his land to any one who is willing to take
it; he is anxious to receive the highest rent he can obtain.
What are the principles which regulate the rent which may
thus be paid?"

These principles the Professor goes on contentedly to investigate, never
appearing to contemplate for an instant the possibility of the first
principle in the whole business--the maintenance, by force, of the
possession of land obtained by force, being ever called in question by
any human mind. It is, nevertheless, the nearest task of our day to
discover how far original theft may be justly encountered by reactionary
theft, or whether reactionary theft be indeed theft at all; and farther,
what, excluding either original or corrective theft, are the just
conditions of the possession of land.

III. Debt. Long since, when, a mere boy, I used to sit silently
listening to the conversation of the London merchants who, all of them
good and sound men of business, were wont occasionally to meet round my
father's dining-table; nothing used to surprise me more than the
conviction openly expressed by some of the soundest and most cautious of
them, that "if there were no National debt they would not know what to
do with their money, or where to place it safely." At the 399th page of
his Manual, you will find Professor Fawcett giving exactly the same
statement.

"In our own country, this certainty against risk of loss is
provided by the public funds;"

and again, as on the question of rent, the Professor proceeds, without
appearing for an instant to be troubled by any misgiving that there may
be an