Thus, Property leads to Exchange; and Exchange again leads to the establishment of some general Instrument and Measure of Exchangeable Value; that is, to the use of Money. The natural Measure of the Exchangeable Value of any objects is the labour of producing, or the difficulty of procuring the objects. Gold and Silver have been most commonly used as Money, because they are procured with a tolerable uniform degree of labour; because they perish very slowly when kept; and because they are easily divisible into definite portions. 131. When mankind have settled employments, and settled habits of intercourse, the natural Value in Exchange, either of these, or of any other objects, can never long differ from the Standard, or Measure, of which we have spoken; the labour of producing and difficulty of procuring them. For if the Exchangeable Value of any class of things were less, proportionally, than the Labour of producing them, men would turn themselves from this kind of Labour, to other employments, in which an equal Exchangeable Value might be obtained with less labour; and thus, the number of persons employed in producing this class of things being diminished, the difficulty of other persons procuring them from the producers would be increased, and the Exchangeable Value would rise. And in like manner, if the Exchangeable Value of any class of things were greater, proportionally, than the Labour of producing them, other persons would turn themselves to this kind of Labour, and the value of the class of things would fall. Thus if the exchangeable value of gold and silver were greater than that of other objects, obtained with equal labour, men would turn their exertions to the collecting gold and silver, as the easiest way of obtaining the other objects of their desires. And though the intercourse of men, and their power of changing their employments, may not be so unfettered as to produce this result immediately; yet, in the long run, the Measure of Value in Exchange will be the amount of Labour employed in producing the objects. 132. But, besides Moveable Property, consisting of objects which the Proprietor can hold, remove, consume, or transfer in a manifest manner; there is Property of another kind, which cannot be removed or destroyed, or possessed in a visible manner; and which yet must be, and by the Laws of every Country is, vested in Proprietors. We speak now of Property in Land. It is requisite that such Property should be established; for in every Country, man subsists on the fruits of the Earth, or on animals which are supported by the Earth; and in order to live, he must have, on the face of the earth, his dwelling-place, and the source of his food and clothing; he must have his house and his field. In most countries, the earth does not supply man with what he needs, except by cultivation; and the Cultivator must be stimulated to perform his task, by having his portion of the fruits of his labour assigned to him as his Property. But whatever amount of Cultivation be necessary, the produce of the earth, and the soil itself, are, in every country, assigned to some class of Landlords as Property, or are assumed as Property by the State itself. 133. The assignation of Landed Property to its owners, as of all other Property, is defined and determined by the Law of the Land. But in Landed Property, the acts of Ownership are less obvious, natural and effective, than they are in other kinds of property; and therefore Property in Land is more peculiarly and manifestly determined and directed by the Law, than Property in Moveables. The ancient Law of England treats Land as that Thing which is eminently and peculiarly the subject of Laws concerning Property, while all other Things are considered as only appendages to Persons. Hence, Land is termed Real Property; everything else is Personal Property. 134. In most countries, the Cultivators are a different class from the Proprietor of the Land; whether the Proprietor be another Class, or the State itself. The Rights of the Cultivator and of the Proprietor are determined by Law, or by Custom equivalent to Law, and are various in various countries. The share given by the Cultivator to the Proprietor is Rent. He who holds the land is the Tenant, in contradistinction to the Landlord, who owns it. : 135. In the greater part of Asia*, the Sovereign is the sole Proprietor; and as such, receives a fixed portion (commonly one-fifth) of the produce from the Cultivator; who is, in India, called a Ryot. In Russia, and a great part of Germany, the Cultivator supports himself on a part of the Land; and pays a Rent to the Landlord in his Labour; being obliged, during a fixed portion of his time, (as for instance, during three days in the week,) to work in the cultivation of the Landlord's exclusive share such Cultivators are Serfs. But these Labour-Rents sometimes became unlimited, and the Serf approached in condition to a Slave. In other parts of Europe, as in Greece, Italy, and France, in ancient and in modern times, the Cultivator has been supplied by the Landlord with the means of cultivation, and has paid to him a fixed portion of the produce; generally one half. Hence such Cultivators are called Coloni Partiarii, Coloni Medietarii, Metayers. In a few spots on the Earth, of which England is an example, there are, between the Landlord and the labouring Cultivator, an intermediate class, the Farmers; who pay a Money-Rent to the Landlord, Wages to the Labourer, and have for themselves the whole produce obtained from the Land. The Farmer must be able to subsist the Labourer, while he is toiling so as to raise a future crop of produce: therefore he must possess a Stock, or Capital, already accumulated. The amount of the * Jones On Rent. produce which the Farmer has, after paying Rent, Wages, and other expenses, is the Profits of his Stock. 136. These various forms of the distribution of the wealth produced by the soil of each Country affect very greatly other Rights, as well as the Rights of Property (129). The Serf generally possesses in a very imperfect degree the Rights of the Person against his Lord; but against other persons, his Lord is supposed to afford him protection. In modern Europe, there prevailed, for several centuries, a System of Tenure of Land with such mutual Rights and Obligations; namely, the Feudal System. According to this system, Land was held on the conditions of Protection from the Superior, and Service from the Inferior; and according to these conditions, a series of Persons, each subordinate to the one above him, had a modified Property in the Land. Each such person was the Vassal of the one above him, his Superior Lord or Seignior. Each Lord had a Right to certain Payments or Dues from his Vassals; and the Vassal, being marshalled as a Soldier under his Lord, was enabled to protect himself and others. The Land thus granted by a superior to an inferior was called a Feud or Fee. None of these Feuds or Fees was an absolute Property; all were held of the Sovereign, at least in England. He was the only Landlord; and the highest Title of Ownership under the Feudal System was Tenant in Fee Simple. Besides Tenants of various kinds, there were mere Labourers who held no Fees, and were called Villeins. At first, this Cultivator in England was precisely in the situation of the Russian Serf*. In the three centuries beginning from about A.D. 1300, the unlimited Labour-Rents paid by the English Villeins for the lands allotted them were gradually commuted for definite services, still payable to the Lord. Out of this grew a legal Right of some of the cultivators to the *Jones On Rent, p. 40. occupation of their Lands, which were registered in a list kept by the Lord. Hence these were called Copyhold Tenures, in distinction to the usual possession of the Soil by a freeman, which was a Freehold Tenure. 137. The relations which the Tenure of Landed Property establishes among different classes continue to influence the Laws, and still more the Forms of Law, in each country, long after their original force has been lost. Two hundred years have barely elapsed since the personal bondage of the Villein ceased to exist among us. Copyhold Tenures are still familiar. The Lord of the Manor, the representative of the Feudal Seignior, has still various Rights, due to him from Copyhold Tenants: as Heriots, payable on the death of the Tenant; Fines, payable when the Land is alienated by the Tenant to another person; the Rights of pursuing Game, which are reserved to the Lord of the Manor, even in Freeholds. And the phrases used in transferring Landed Property still have many traces of the Feudal System. 138. In like manner, in the Roman Law the conditions of Property and the modes of transferring it retained to a late period traces of the earlier modes of Tenure. In the earliest known stage of the Roman Law, Lands, with the Slaves and Cattle requisite for their cultivation, were transferred by a ceremonious form called Mancipatio; and the Quirites, or original Roman citizens, could not transfer ownership in any other way. Hence arose a division of Res Mancipi, things which could be thus transferred, and Res nec Mancipi, things which could not. But though a man could not acquire Quiritarian ownership or Dominium, without this process, he might have possession and use of a thing without such ownership; and the later jurists recognized this kind of Right. They say, There is among foreigners * Gaius 11. 40, who lived in the time of the Antonines. |