No one shared with me the trouble and expense; no one shall share with me the benefits." You have labored, proprietor! why then do you speak of original occupancy?
What, were you not sure of your right, or did you hope to deceive men, and make justice an illusion?
Make haste, then, to acquaint us with your mode of defence, for the judgment will be final; and you know it to be a question of restitution.
You have labored! but what is there in common between the labor which duty compels you to perform, and the appropriation of things in which there is a common interest?
Do you not know that domain over the soil, like that over air and light, cannot be lost by prescription?
You have labored! have you never made others labor?
Why, then, have they lost in laboring for you what you have gained in not laboring for them?
You have labored! very well; but let us see the results of your labor.
We will count, weigh, and measure them.

It will be the judgment of Balthasar; for I swear by balance, level, and square, that if you have appropriated another's labor in any way whatsoever, you shall restore it every stroke.
Thus, the principle of occupation is abandoned; no longer is it said, "The land belongs to him who first gets possession of it." Property, forced into its first intrenchment, repudiates its old adage; justice, ashamed, retracts her maxims, and sorrow lowers her bandage over her blushing cheeks.

And it was but yesterday that this progress in social philosophy began: fifty centuries required for the extirpation of a lie! During this lamentable period, how many usurpations have been sanctioned, how many invasions glorified, how many conquests celebrated! The absent dispossessed, the poor banished, the hungry excluded by wealth, which is so ready and bold in action! Jealousies and wars, incendiarism and bloodshed, among the nations! But henceforth, thanks to the age and its spirit, it is to be admitted that the earth is not a prize to be won in a race; in the absence of any other obstacle, there is a place for everybody under the sun.

Each one may harness his goat to the bearn, drive his cattle to pasture, sow a corner of a field, and bake his bread by his own fireside.
But, no; each one cannot do these things.

I hear it proclaimed on all sides, "Glory to labor and industry! to each according to his capacity; to each capacity according to its results!" And I see three-fourths of the human race again despoiled, the labor of a few being a scourge to the labor of the rest.
"The problem is solved," exclaims M.Hennequin.