friends to
expect would be the case after she was freed from the Turks, is
universally admitted. The great bar to improvement exists in an evil
rooted in the present frame of social life, but fortunately one which
good and just government would gradually remove. In Greece there is no
clear and definite idea of the sacred right of property in land. The god
Terminus is held in no respect. No Greek, from the highest to the
lowest, understands the meaning of that absolute right of property
"which," as Blackstone says, "consists in the free use, enjoyment, and
disposal by every Englishman of all his acquisitions, without control or
diminution, save only by the laws of the land."

The appropriation of Mr Finlay's land by King Otho, without measurement,
valuation, or payment, to make a garden for his palace--the formation of
a great road leading to the French minister's house, by the municipality
of Athens, without indemnifying the owners of the land, though a road
sufficiently good already existed--and the confiscation of half the
estates purchased by foreigners from the Turks by Maurocordatos, when
Minister of Finance under the Bavarian Regency, in a ministerial
circular deciding on rights of property, are mere trifling examples of
the universal spirit. When Maurocordatos wrote his memorable
declaration, "that every spot where wild herbs, fit for the pasturage of
cattle, grow, is national property, and that the Greek government
recognises no individual property in the soil except the exclusive right
of cultivation," he only, in deference to the Bavarian policy of the
time, which wished to copy Mohammed Ali's administration in Egypt,
caricatured a misconception of the right of property equally strong in
every Greek, whether he be the oppressor or the oppressed. Even the late
National Assembly has not thought it necessary to correct any of the
invasions of private property by the preceding despotism. Individuals,
almost ruined by the plunder of their land, have not even received the
offer of an indemnity, though the justice of their claims is not
denied.{C}

The origin of this national obtuseness of mind on a question of
interest, is to be found in the system of taxing the land. A Greek
really views land somewhat as English labourers view game. The owner of
the soil is absolute proprietor only during those months in which he is
engaged in the labours of preparing the land and sowing the seed. As
soon as the harvest time arr