and however much some may be tempted to protest against it no politician would seriously propose to upset a system which has held good since the time of Elizabeth, and the foundations of which were laid so soon as England became Christian. The contention must be that each man can secure for himself any comforts beyond the mere necessaries of life to better purpose than the State can procure them for him. This of course means continue to procure them: it is undoubted that the State could meet his immediate necessities, but it is held that it cannot continue to do so for any length of time, and that if a man's wants and those of his children are to be regularly and permanently supplied he had better form the habit of depending on his own efforts.

This conclusion depends on the assumption that reliance on the State always saps the vigour and enterprise of individuals: for on the supposition-perhaps a wild one-that the individuals would work as hard and zealously when the State supplied their physical necessities as they do when dependent on themselves for the means of life, the State might continue to support them constantly without serious loss. Without urging this view, we may notice that there is no certainty that Statesupport must necessarily sap individual vigour. If sufficient food and warmth comprise the whole of any man's ambition it may act in this way; but if he desires anything else,leisure or amusement or self-improvement of any kind, he will still have a reason for doing his best, even if the compulsion of physical necessity be removed. Supposing the attractions of culture were more generally perceived by the fact that possibilities for such enjoyment were brought within the reach of the mass of the people, there might be an attractive stimulus to vigorous labour

which would be far stronger than the compulsion of poverty indeed it has always been held by moralists that an attraction which stimulates a man's aspirations and ambitions acts far more powerfully than a necessity which compels him to work for bare life: besides, extreme poverty may render a man reckless and hopeless rather than diligent. Indeed there are many cases where the want of sufficient food and warmth renders men physically incapable of getting through as much work as they would otherwise do, and in such an instance there is some difficulty in contending that a State-supply of sufficient food would render the man a less efficient worker permanently, and that the weakened moral effort―owing to reliance on the State-would not be counterbalanced by increased physical vigour.

If these points appear to be fanciful, we must remember that they cannot be waived in serious discussion in the present day, and that they are urged by men who hold to them firmly. If we are to lay down as an axiom that the State shall not supply the people with necessaries of life but should teach them to rely on themselves, we must show that the forces which compel to work are more powerful than those which attract and stimulate to work, and that the energy of those who rely on State-help is necessarily sapped. With the case of free-schools in America before us this is a hard matter; but at any rate we may note that the principle assumes a certain effect on human character as necessarily following from a given course of action; and we may remember that this is a kind of argument in which as we have seen above (p. 130) a very great amount of uncertainty is involved. We may therefore urge that the principle that the State should not supply individuals with the necessaries of life must

-in England-be taken subject to limitations, and that even thus the maxim depends on certain changes in human character which render it of somewhat doubtful validity.

We need not however go to the opposite extreme and urge that the State should try to make everybody comfortable all round in the firm faith that all would be more vigorous and diligent, -as some of the supporters of the Irish Land Bill seemed inclined to maintain; this, to put it mildly, is at least as uncertain as the proposition we are discussing. But we may urge, that general objection to the State-supply of necessaries is not so absolutely conclusive as to justify us in at once condemning a measure which involves something of the sort: we cannot prejudge the matter by this principle, but must take the case on its merits: it is because we value individual effort and desire to see it stimulated to the highest degree that we refuse to accept a doctrine which seems to imply that it can only be stimulated by having a burden cast upon it. May it not sometimes be called forth in greater vigour when it is met half-way by the State?

(y.) The remaining suggestion is that the State should avoid infringing the moral responsibility of individuals : that individual judgment must have free play, and individual responsibility for the results of one's conduct. This was the line taken by the opponents of the Plimsoll legislation; they held that the shipowner was the person who could really see to the condition of his ship effectively, that the intervention of an inspector might only mean a divided responsibility, and thus introduce new dangers instead of curing old ones. Sir Charles Adderley

stated the line taken in the Bill of the Government as

distinguished from that of Mr. Plimsoll by saying they desired to define the responsibility of shipowners, while Mr. Plimsoll's bill made State officials responsible.1 Mr. Goschen in his Edinburgh address 2 has put forward a similar opinion in a general form, and complained of the substitution of a general for an individual conscience as one of the great evils of a departure from a judicious policy of laisser faire. But before we allow ourselves to be carried away by what is doubtless an effective argument we must ask how far is this valued individual responsibility a real one. To take the case of the shipowners we must notice that not only is the pressure of responsibility removed by the terms on which insurance can be effected, but as Mr. Chamberlain pointed out in his conference with the shipowners at Newcastle, there are innumerable ways in which the State relieves the owner of a part of the pressure of his cares, by providing pilots, and through the terms in which his responsibilities are defined by statute. It must be a question in any given case whether individual responsibility-in this trade-is really effective or whether it is already so divided and weakened as to afford no sufficient security for the good conduct of business. And it would appear that in those cases of regulating mines and merchant shipping and so forth in which this argument has been used most strongly, public opinion has rightly or wrongly come to the conclusion that individual responsibility has proved an insufficient safeguard.

We need not underrate the importance of any of the considerations thus urged by those who have proposed one or other canon for the limitation of State action: it is a pity to define the kind of bargains men may make with one another as there is a danger of compelling them 13 Hansard, ccxxvi. 140. 2 2d Nov. 1883. 3 16th Jan. 1884.

to forego an arrangement which would have been satisfactory to each: there is a danger of undermining selfdependence by supplying support to the poor, as was done by the allowance system; there may be a danger of unduly lessening individual attention to safeguards: but none of these dangers is so decided or so incapable of being outweighed by other advantages as to justify us in refusing to entertain a proposal because it appears likely to bring one or other of these consequences in its train. We must discard such general maxims and claim our right to discuss each case on its merits.

44. Thus far we have seen the character of State interference, it is moral; and we have found that no hard and fast rule can be laid down as to the measure of interference that is wise; but a few words must be added in regard to the manner in which it is attempted.

a. Of course the simplest case of all is compulsory legislation which inflicts punishments on all individuals who do not take a certain course of conduct: the Education Act gives a capital instance of this, together with the institution of visitors to be the compelling force. The history of the Factory Acts shows that in legislation of this kind there may be great difficulty in setting the law in force. We might thus divide compulsory legislation into classes according as the ordinary tribunals served for the enforcement of the law, or as the State had to take more special action.

b. In recent years however we have had a great deal of permissive legislation, and in many cases it has been strongly objected to as of no practical value. The