a thing as freely to devise for all time a power of controlling their property and liberties. He regarded the form in which the king obtained authority as an agreement with the people, and as an agreement which the people were justified in compelling the king to respect. The full consequences of this doctrine in their bearing on the duty of passive obedience, and for that matter on the duty of any obedience at all, need not be followed out here it is of far more importance that we should notice the test by which Locke proposed to judge of the good or evil of any particular rule—this was the happiness of the people. Although the royalists regarded the national wellbeing as the object to be pursued, they could not have admitted that non-success in attaining it was always due to the errors of those in authority. It might be brought about by the insubordination of the subjects, as much as by the unwisdom of the rulers. But Locke was certainly right in regarding it as a rough and ready test which showed that something was wrong somewhere; and as the ultimate decision on matters of government lay with the people, it was for the people to investigate the causes of failure, and to devise means, by a change of rulers if need be, of setting the matter right.

Locke's appeal to happiness was made, however, only as a negative test: he does not regard it as the end to be consciously pursued, nor is he concerned to show how the prospective happiness is to be estimated and measured, for he does not treat it as the groundwork of political right and wrong. That groundwork is given in the law of nature, it is this that the administrator has to keep in view in guiding the destinies of a realm: but Locke's religious faith led him to believe that unhappiness arises from the breach of that natural law, and that where misery

came on the people, there was at least a strong presumption that the rulers had exercised their powers unworthily.

The happiness of the citizens plays a still more important part in his scheme, for it is used to explain the nature of the bond which holds men together as a single people. It is, according to his view, because they each wish to remedy the inconveniences they find in the state of nature that men agree to form themselves into a civil society, in the hope of thus obtaining a better security for their persons and property. If the discomforts of civil society were very great, they might apparently prefer to withdraw themselves into comparative isolation again. Thus private interests are treated as the sole tie which holds a political society together: the bonds which arise from affinity of race, or the possession of common speech and common customs, are scarcely alluded to: the tie to one's native country seems to be inexplicable on Locke's principle, unless one is the fortunate possessor of real estate, which could not be enjoyed under an alien rule. This part of Locke's essay is perhaps the least satisfactory if we regard it as a philosophy, for there seem to be a considerable number of obvious facts which are inconsistent with it all the phenomena of loyalty and patriotism are difficult to explain, and it is impossible to see under what circumstances a man would be justified in dying for his country. But the practical importance of his teaching was undoubtedly very great: so far as it took a hold on men's minds, they would be apt to regard the relation of subjects to their rulers not as one of obedience to a Godappointed minister, and of respect to the source from which all their liberties emanated and by whom all their property was secured, but as a matter of expediency, and a relationship which had been formed because private con

venience dictated it, and which might be broken without discredit, if private interest leaned in a new direction.

21. These private interests, though noticed by Locke in connexion with the formation of a state, did not assert themselves so as to affect the practical management of affairs for many years after his time; and the course of commercial policy was similar to what it had been in James's time, but with a difference. Private enterprise had grown to be more active and powerful, and the opening up of new colonies or a new line of commerce was less dependent on the royal initiative. There had been

great improvements too in the mechanism of commerce : the foundation of the Bank of England marks the introduction of a credit system in finance, and an extraordinary new development of credit in ordinary trading. The Navigation Act had enabled us to secure an enormous carrying trade, and our shipping was in a most flourishing condition; our fisheries were more prosperous than they had ever been; and the religious persecutions of the Continent had led to the introduction, from France and Flanders, of workmen skilled in the silk, linen, and woollen trades. But all of this progress was regarded as a matter of congratulation, not because many individuals in the nation were richer, but because the whole realm was more powerful and better able to sustain her rivalry with France.

The keen eye of Sir William Temple1 had seen as early as 1668 that Holland had passed the meridian of prosperity, and in the beginning of the eighteenth century the Dutch were no longer sufficiently powerful to waken strong national jealousy. But the rise of France under

1 Observations on the United Provinces (2d ed.), 238.

the policy of Colbert had been unexampled, and the ambition of Louis XIV. knew no bounds. To lovers of liberty, hatred of the France of the ancient regime became a political duty in the same way that the hatred of Spain had been to their reforming forefathers. In every quarter of the globe France was our rival: her sugar colonies prospered while ours languished, her generals plotted to oust our merchants from India altogether, and her settlements in North America formed a ring which threatened the prosperity and would ultimately frustrate the extension of our own plantations. England and France were engaged in a deadly struggle, not so much for leadership in Europe, as for pre-eminence in the world.1 The success of Englishmen in securing an Indian Empire, and driving the French from North America, may surely be in part ascribed to the practical sagacity with which her statesmen fostered national wealth, and thus laid secure foundations for national power. At any rate in the presence of this gigantic struggle it was impossible for the private interests of individual citizens to assert themselves : they, whether English consumers, or colonial producers, had to accommodate themselves to the policy which favoured the wealth of the whole community.

And this of course, not the absolute wealth, but the wealth relatively to France.2 The trade returns showed that in dealing with France we consumed a greater value of her products and manufactures than she did of ours; and this was thought to mean that we gave a greater impulse and stimulus to her industry than she did to ours. With Portugal on the other hand the case was quite different, as the Portuguese consumed more of our goods than we

1 Seeley's Expansion of England, p. 28.

2 See above, p. 42.

did of theirs, and the things they sent us were articles we could not procure for ourselves. Trade with them did not prevent the employment of a single Englishman, though it gave a market for the produce of many; while the fashionable French commodities supplanted our own coarser wares in our own markets, and gave us no corresponding sale of other goods. The Methven treaty was intended to encourage intercourse with Portugal and to destroy trade with France: if our great political rival was to prosper, at least we would not have it on our conscience that we had contributed to her prosperity by purchasing her goods.

22. This economic system then was in its broad outlines similar to that which had been in vogue under James I. but yet with a difference. The king was no longer the active centre of national life, from whose intervention and assistance all new developments proceeded. The crown was even ceasing to be a watchword which would kindle any widespread enthusiasm in the nation, and loyalty to the reigning monarch was at a very low ebb indeed. So far as it survived it was hardly regarded as a duty, but rested entirely on considerations of interest. Englishmen could hardly be expected to rally to their country's cause under the leadership of a Dutchman or a Hanoverian. The people were keen for supporting national interests, and in national interests the foreigner kings had often but little concern: their real homes were on the Continent, and their hearts were in struggles about which Englishmen scarcely cared-or only cared that France and French interests should not prevail. And therefore the initiative in all matters of commercial policy had passed away from the king: enterprising men no

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