Page:Aristopia (1895).pdf/99

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expected to acquire from the king to other and broader lands. This title he was to hold during his life as a means of insuring the carrying out of his views; but, although the ultimate title of the land rested in him, the practical ownership should be in the Commonwealth, from whom the citizens should hold the land. No agricultural land should be leased for longer than fifteen years at one lease, and no urban land for longer than fifty years. These leases could be renewed, so that a family could make a home and have a security for its continued possession—something which private ownership does not give to the nominal owner, as millions of poor men have found to their sorrow. The Commonwealth might, until it needed the rent for revenue, allow its members land rent free, but no more to one man than he and his family actually tilled or used without hired help.

The next great instrument for enriching a few at the expense of the many was, Ralph Morton saw, the traffic in merchandise. No other thing, except monopoly of land, could so encourage a selfish and greedy disposition as this traffic. Next to usury, it is the delight of that strange vampire race, the Hebrews. The