I am sorry to use the word brigand, but what would you call a man who stole your horse or watch; and it is a far greater crime to steal land. Now, stolen land carries no title, except one devised by landlords. That is, there is no _moral_ title. So we come to the land "won" from the Saxons. The title of this land is the title of conquest, and only by that title can it be held, and only with that title can it be sold. What the sword has won the sword must hold. He who has taken land by force has a title to it only so long as he can hold it by force. This point is neatly expressed in a story told by Henry George-- A nobleman stops a tramp, who is crossing his park, and orders him off _his_ land. The tramp asks him how came the land to be his? The noble replies that he inherited it from his father. "How did _he_ get it?" asks the tramp. "From his father," is the reply; and so the lord is driven back to the proud days of his origin--the Conquest. "And how did your great, great, great, etc., grandfather get it?" asks the tramp. The nobleman draws himself up, and replies, "He fought for it and won it." "Then," says the unabashed vagrant, beginning to remove his coat, "I will fight _you_ for it." The tramp was quite logical. Land won by the sword may be rewon by the sword, and the right of conquest implies the right of any party strong enough for the task to take the conquered land from its original conqueror. And yet the very men who claim the land as theirs by right of ancient conquest would be the first to deny the right of conquest to others. They claim the land as theirs because eight hundred years ago their fathers took it from the English people, but they deny the right of the English people to take it back from them. A duke holds lands taken by the Normans under William. He holds them by right of the fact that his ancestor stole them, or, as the duke would say, "won" them. But let a party of revolutionaries propose to-day to win these lands back from him in the same manner, and the duke would cry out, "Thief! thief! thief!" and call for the protection of the law. It would be "immoral" and "illegal," the duke would say, for the British people to seize his estates. Should such a proposal be made, the modern duke would not defend himself, as his ancestors did, by force of arms, but would appeal to the law. Who made the law? The law was made by the same gentlemen who appropriated and held the land. As the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain said in his speech at Denbigh in 1884-- The House of Lords, that club of Tory landlords, in its gilded chamber, has disposed of the welfare of the people with almost exclusive regard to the interests of a class. Or, as the same statesman said at Hull in 1885--