The rich man has
entered into an absolute ownership of farms and fields; and (in the modern
industrial phrase) he has locked out the English people. They can only
find an acre to dig or a house to sleep in by accepting such competitive
and cruel terms as he chooses to impose.
Well, what would happen then, over the larger parts of the planet, parts
inhabited by savages? Savages, of course, would hunt and fish. That
retreat for the English poor was perceived; and that retreat was cut off.
Game laws were made to extend over districts like the Arctic snows or the
Sahara. The rich man had property over animals he had no more dreamed of
than a governor of Roman Africa had dreamed of a giraffe. He owned all
the birds that passed over his land: he might as well have owned all the
clouds that passed over it. If a rabbit ran from Smith's land to Brown's
land, it belonged to Brown, as if it were his pet dog. The logical
answer to this would be simple: Any one stung on Brown's land ought to be
able to prosecute Brown for keeping a dangerous wasp without a muzzle.
Thus the poor man was forced to be a tramp along the roads and to sleep in
the open. That retreat was perceived; and that retreat was cut off.
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