Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 266, 26 August 1891 — HEREDITARY RIGHT. [ARTICLE]

HEREDITARY RIGHT.

(Written"for Ka Leo).

Modern .sta tes ui a n ship ;is practis- ♦ i }>v i-jviljzed nu,tioni, • onsists! tfci'ily in passiug the responsibj.i2ty; The aim pf : *-eyery goyernrji!0nt is to get through . as best it e in aiul ;be<iueath all its difficulties to the government that comes after it, and the object of every generation of humanity is to <lodge immeJiate e.'iJamity, and to pass the cataclysm on to the generation whieh is to iollow. Politics iri geneial k simp\y the eeienee of not 1 carmg a straw for posterity, andj the world has practised this art | uo long that posterity as a rule has j had a bad time of it. | Everything that is movable or| negotiable has been traded off at some tirne or other in the world's' history, with a joyous disregard for the fact that the people who are to eome have had no voice in the disposal of their birth-right, and but for the fact tliat the planet itself is, in a great measure a fixture, it would most likely have been sold OHt of its orbit, and the men of future as;es would have been left with no solid resting plaee or pormanent habitation. As it is, the landlord owns the earth, and reluctantly allows the rest of humanity to walk on it because t-here is no other plaee to put them. Their presence is unmistakably objectionable and leads to the undue wear and tear of a sphere whieh is priva1e property, and if they could be thrown into the upper air and prevented from cbming down again the advantages would be manifest. Whenjthe statesmen of the past sold or gave away the earth, they were doubtless aware that po8terity would want some solid substance to Bit down upon, but, as usual they passed on the responsibility. The purchasers of the planet being unahle to lift their property and carry it away with them, and deposit it in a safe plaee, their position never heeame absolutely secure; but they and their descendants camped on top of their goods ever einee, and warned off the rest of humanity. These latter are of course intruders with no legal right or license to be there at all, for the world was practically all sold before they «eame, and no man has any buainess on a globe whieh belongs to some one else; but, as they cannot be got rid of, the landlord puts up with their pre8enc<e and cbarges tbem gtanding room. The arrangement is an emiuently cumbereomē one, but the man who invented it — whoever he might be—passed it on as a temporary expedient, and it has been passed on persistently ever since. The ingeniouB epeculator who first S'īld the earth and the dariug finaneier who firet brought it, are both dead, but their evil deede live after They were mere temporary amAials —two eommen plaee iX>nstruction8 of dust, with uo more

| elaim to immortality ihan the rest | o£ their Lind, but heeauee they ] were allowed for a brief epaee to i craw-i upon ,the surface of this | p!anet they eonceived the brilliant | idta of claiming it to all eternity, ! and trading off the rigbts of āll j «ucceeding generations. Their title | was preeisely the same as that of ' the fly whieh because it was allowed to walk for a minute, on the !' bald head of an eraperor. assumes ihe sight to sell that poteiitate and all his descendants to another in--ect-of its own raoe. But aomehow the human family failed to realise the absurdity ,of! transient man trading off the infi- j nite. It allowe itself to read u keep off my land," aiid to be fined and j imprisoned and assessed in <Jaoiag-1 1 es for standing on its own earth, ( because some nameless heap ©f dust whieh was buried centuries ago left behind it a document declaring that it shou!d be so to the end of the time. It grovels to the dead monop:list as well as to the one who is in the flesh, and it seems ineapahle of realising thatthe earth belongs only to its living inhabitants, and that the dead proprietor ha8 no more elaim upon it, and no more voice in its disposal than the ass that was buried yesterday. The human race is merely a tenant for life. Its control over the earth ends in the grave, and the deceased landlord, whatever authority he was allowed to eiaim during his ) life, leave none behind him, for being dead he owns nothing, and owning nothing he, ean transmit nothing. But b} T the insane princip)e of hereditary right, the man who has fooled away his own elaim to the free use qf the planet whieh is the eommon property of all its inhabitants, is also allowed to fool away the elaim of his descendants. and the man who ha8 usurped the earth is allowed not only ~to enjoy the fruits of 1}is own brigandage, but to perpetuate the injustice to his I>08terity. The dust of the dead landholder and the dead eow are undistingui6hable f but the one pile of ashes is nothing, while the other is permitted even in its grave to steal the eommon heritage of humanity through the succeeding agee. When the world had one accepted the principles that man could nut futurity up to auction, and could lawfully buy and sell and barter and mortgage not only his own right to live on goi>'s earth but that of all his posterity, itwas soon found that the principle was eapable of indefinite expansion. The grand axion on whieh our national credit ie based is,that itis lionorable and lawful for an insane generation to have a high old time utterlv re* gardless of consequences, and leave its successor to pay the Bill. England fooled away some $3.500,000,000 in the attempt to crush the new-found liberties of Franee, and though 80 yiear8 have passed 8inee then it is paying the bi 11 yet and will be probably paying it in the last day8 of the British empire, Aecording to the drivel of 4,heredii tary right'' the honor of the nation j is pledged to the liquidation of that stupendouH invoi<'e nr old-time bigotry, and on this principle every government, as well as every individual, is to haud down the consequencep of it.« own unfatbomable greed and folly to all time.