As the first item on the programme, the Belgian Proudhonist, De Paepe, proposed to the Congress to declare (1) that society had the right to abolish individual ownership in the land, and give it back to the community; (2) that it was necessary to make the land common property. Albert Richard vehemently opposed individual ownership as the source of all social inequalities and all poverty. "It arose from force and from unlawful seizure, and it must disappear: and property in land must be regulated by the federally organised communes." Bakunin himself supported De Paepe's proposal; but it is not hard to understand that opposition made itself felt in the Anarchist ranks. Several pronounced Anarchists, especially Murat and Tolain, supported individual property with great decision and warmth. Nevertheless De Paepe's Collectivist proposal was accepted by fifty-four (or fifty-three) votes to four. But the Bakuninists did not gain the same success in the next question, concerning the right of inheritance. This was a question quite characteristic of Bakunin. The proposal ran: "In consideration of the fact that inheritance as an inseparable element in individual ownership contributes to the alienation of property in land and of social riches for the benefit of the few and the hurt of the majority; that consequently inheritance hinders land and social wealth from becoming common property: that, on the other hand, inheritance, however limited its operation may be, forms a privilege, the greater or lesser importance of which does not remove injustice, and continually threatens social rights; that, further, inheritance, whether it appears either in politics or economics, forms an essential element in all inequalities, because it hinders the individual having the same means of moral and material development; considering, finally, that the Congress has pronounced in favour of collective property in land, and that this declaration would be illogical if it were not strengthened by this following declaration: the Congress recognises that inheritance must be completely and absolutely abolished, and its abolition is one of the most necessary conditions of the emancipation of labour." One might have believed that a congress which had calmly agreed to the abolition of individual property in land could have no objection to make to the abolition of such an "unequal" and "feudal" institution as inheritance. But it appears that it was desired to let Bakunin (whose hobby the struggle against inheritance was well known to be) plainly see that the Congress wished to have none of him, although they had not ventured to oppose the views of his adherents upon the far more important question. The proposal only received thirty-two votes for it, twenty-three against it, and seventeen delegates refrained from voting. Therefore the resolution was lost, since it could not obtain a decisive majority.