property other than personal possessions does
still often satisfy, though imperfectly and precariously, is the need
for security. To the small investors, who are the majority of
property-owners, though owning only an insignificant fraction of the
property in existence, its meaning is simple. It is not wealth or
power, or even leisure from work. It is safety. They work hard. They
save a little money for old age, or for sickness, or for their
children. They invest it, and the interest stands between them and all
that they dread most. Their savings are of convenience to industry,
the income from them is convenient to themselves. "Why," they ask,
"should we not reap in old age the advantage of energy and thrift in
youth?" And this hunger for security is so imperious that those who
suffer most from the abuses of property, as well as those who, if they
could profit by them, would be least inclined to do so, will tolerate
and even defend them, for fear lest the knife which trims dead matter
should cut into the quick. They have seen too many men drown to be
{73} critical of dry land, though it be an inhospitable rock. They are
haunted by the nightmare of the future, and, if a burglar broke it,
would welcome a burglar.

This need for security is fundamental, and almost the gravest
indictment of our civilization is that the mass of mankind are without
it. Property is one way of organizing it. It is quite comprehensible
therefore, that the instrument should be confused with the end, and
that any proposal to modify it should create dismay. In the past,
human beings, roads, bridges and ferries, civil, judicial and clerical
offices, and commissions in the army have all been private property.
Whenever it was proposed to abolish the rights exercised over them, it
was protested that their removal would involve the destruction of an
institution in which thrifty men had invested their savings, and on
which they depended for protection amid the chances of life and for
comfort in old age. In fact, however, property is not the only method
of assuring the future, nor, when it is the way selected, is security
dependent upon the maintenance of all the rights which are at present
normally involved in ownership. In so far as its psychological
foundation is the necessity for securing an income which is stable and
certain, which is forthcoming when its recipient cannot work, and which
can be used to provide for those who cannot prov