where upon the official anvil. The more patient submit, but the stronger and more rebellious characters are maddened, and any weapon is considered right as the weapon of the weaker against the stronger."
England, the writer admits, is in a different position. "We have inherited," he says, "splendid traditions of voluntaryism, which hardly any other nation has inherited; and it is to voluntraryism, the inspiring genius of the English character, that we must look in the future, as we did in the past, for escape from all difficulties. If we can not by reason, by influence, by example, by strenuous effort, and by personal sacrifice, mend the bad places of civilization, we certainly can not do it by force." At the same time England has entered, he considers, on the dangerous path of paternal and protective legislation. As jet she has only soiled her ankles—so he expresses it—where other nations have waded deep, and it is not yet too late "to step back from the mire and slough which lie in front of her." The question is, Will she? Under the guise of socialism and humanitarianism, the spirit of compulsion is in the air. The well-meaning everywhere are longing to see whether they are not, or can not command, a majority in order that they may begin to wield that compulsive power which it is one of the strange delusions of the modern world that majorities have a right to exercise in everything. Yet if one were to propose to put any one of these well-meaning persons under the absolute control of another well-meaning person, who should prescribe for him his comings and goings, decide for him what causes he should support, how much money he should give in charity and for what particular objects, how much wealth he should accumulate and at what point the fruits of his industry should pass over to the state, we greatly fear that well-meaning person number one would make strong objections. True, he wants, with the aid of those who agree with him in opinion, to settle these points for others; but he has never seriously considered what it would be like to part with his own liberty. Ordinary human beings require something more than an assurance of another person's good intentions before they are willing to make a surrender to him of any large measure of their freedom of action; and we imagine that many of those who to-day advocate an indefinite increase in the power of the state do so under a fond impression that their particular views and schemes, humanitarian or other, will always prevail. They, with the help of others like-minded, want to govern the world for its good. Well, what tyranny ever professed less? Good intentions are excellent things to have, but when they make alliance with the policeman's truncheon they become committed to many devious lines of policy, and quickly assume all the odious characteristics of tyranny.
But does not the present unchecked action of laissez-faire, it may be asked, threaten danger to society? Society as an organism, we answer, will always be subject more or less to disturbances; but the important thing is to see that we do not interfere with the compensating actions which, like organisms in general when thrown out of equilibrium, it has the power to set up. Action and reaction in the social world, as elsewhere, are equal and opposite; and given the fact that man's instinct is to pursue happiness, and the further fact that the happiness of each individual is largely dependent on the dispositions of others, the actions and reactions taking place in a society not strangled by government control would steadily tend toward an increase of the general welfare. Public opinion is, in all free communities, a powerful agent of reform; but it would be still more powerful if it did not so often seek to embody itself in law. We have yet to be convinced that the world has suffered injury by any application of laissez-faire. Uuder that
