being continually made, not by abstaining Mohammedans, but by pork-eating Christians, a Mohammedan legislature would be perfectly justified in forbidding the eating of pork, and even Mr. Mill himself, if there resident, and conversant with these facts, would say, 'Well, really, if this is the case, society is quite right to forbid the eating of pork.' But see the moderation of the friends of the Alliance. They do not go nearly so far. They merely say, 'Forbid the public sale of the pork. That will go far to suppress the evils complained of. Let a man keep his own pig and cure his own pork, and eat it if he will, or give portions of it to his friends, but forbid the public sale or consumption of it.'

But, indeed, it is possible we may not have need for going so far as to Mohammedan countries for our illustrations. If the recently discovered disease in pork (the trichina) should spread considerably, the absolute prohibition of the sale of pork in this country would not be improbable, and that without the one-thousandth part of the grounds for such a step that the Alliance has for the prohibition it claims. Where should we find Mr. Mill then? Would, he still maintain the right of the individual to eat diseased pork if he chose; and that as he had a right to eat, that there must be a right to buy, and if a right to buy, then a right to sell?

Or how does Mr. Mill regard the present market regulations with regard to the beef of cattle infected by the rinderpest? Ought the sale of such beef to be allowed, provided full warning were given to the public of the doubtful nature of the beef they were buying, of which, by-the-bye, we have no evidence that there is any danger to men from the eating; and (in Mr. Mill's own words) if not, why not?

Mr. Mill next cites the case of the Spaniards, who, he says, 'consider it a gross impiety to worship the Almighty except in the Roman Catholic manner,' and that they look upon a married clergy as not only irreligious, but unchaste, indecent, gross, and disgusting.' He then asks, On what principle it is possible consistently' to refuse to justify the enforcing against non-Catholics conformity to these their convictions, or who can blame them for desiring to suppress what they regard as a scandal in the sight of God and man?'

We reply, if they do really conscientiously feel that these non-Catholic practices conduce to the immorality, and consequently are injurious to the welfare of the nation, they have no alternative but to act on those convictions and suppress such practices. We may regret that they are so misinformed, but we at least could not dare to condemn them for acting on their convictions. Paul did a like thing, as he says, igno

rantly;

rantly; but then with him, and with them, the error lay not in the conscientious act, but in the ignorance. Their ignorance may be culpable, or it may not; but they ought to act on their conviction. There are only two reasons which could at all avail against the force of these convictions: one, the impression that, perhaps, after all they were mistaken in them; and the other, an impression that the mode by which they intended to eradicate these bad practices was almost certain to fail, if not to produce a contrary result to that intended. Here again, however, our case is entirely different. The parallel to our case would be, that non-Catholic practices exist in the country; non-Catholic judges sit on the bench, and confess to non-Catholic juries that the non-Catholic religious practices were bringing a flood of immorality on the country; that scarcely any Catholics ever came before them, but that the non-Catholics and non-Catholic clergy were continually in the dock, and for crimes against social order, solely arising from their mode of worship; that, on the strength of these non-Catholic representations and confessions, the Catholics urge, not that no one be allowed to hold Protestant opinions, but that the non-Catholic places of worship where, by the confession of the non-Catholics themselves, most of the crimes originated, should be closed. Again, we say, if Mr. Mill were one of those non-Catholic judges of Spain, under such circumstances he would certainly be found favourable to the passing of such a law.

We might, if it were necessary, go through all Mr. Mill's illustrations in the same way, but we think these two will suffice.

A few pages further, however, Mr. M11 takes up our special question, citing an abstract from a letter of the honorary secretary of the Alliance as his basis for an attack on the theory of social rights' held by the Alliance. There may be, perhaps, rather a lack of well-defined boundaries to the position taken by the honorary secretary of the Alliance, of which Mr. Mill makes the most, straining the honorary secretary's words far beyond their evident signification. The honorary secretary says: 'I claim as a citizen a right to legislate whenever my social right are invaded by the social act of another. If anything invades my social rights, certainly the traffic in strong drink does.' 'It destroys my primary right of security by constantly creating and stimulating social disorder. It invades my right of equality (i.e., before the law), by deriving a profit from the creation of a misery that I am taxed to support.' If the honorary secretary had stopped here he would have proved our case, and to

this portion Mr. Mill brings no objection. But he continued: 'It impedes my right to free, moral, and intellectual development, by surrounding my path with dangers, and by weakening and demoralising society, from which I have a right to This last sentence Mr. claim mutual aid and intercourse.' Mill not quite fairly undertakes to discuss separately from its preceding context, and thus breaks forth in virtuous indignation:

"A theory of "social rights," the like of which probably never before found its way into distinct language, being nothing short of this-that it is the absolute social right of every individual, that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought; that whosoever fails thereof in the smallest particular violates my social right, and entitles me to demand from the legislature the removal of the grievance.'

Now, while we are not prepared to maintain the absolute soundness of every word uttered in support of the position of the Alliance by any one of its defenders, even by its honorary secretary, yet we do assert that this argument of Mr. Mill's, plausible as it appears, is not really applicable to the argument of the honorary secretary. The honorary secretary was not saying, as Mr. Mill's argument implies (and which he might possibly have correctly urged), that the drinking customs of society impeded his free, moral, and intellectual development, by surrounding his path with dangers, and by weakening and demoralising society, &c., &c.,' but that the traffic in strong drink does so.' Now, this liquor traffic is not a question of the individual acting or not acting in every respect exactly as he ought.' It is a huge system, built up by, and hedged about with, the sanction of law; an integral portion of the laws of the land under which we live; and by the aid of that law interfering thus with the social, moral, and intellectual development both of society and of the individual members composing it. The claim that a law-supported system like this should be removed, as being a grievance, is surely a very different thing from claiming (as Mr. Mill puts it) that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought; and that, failing that, he entitles me to demand the removal of the grievance. Along, consequently, with this plausible but baseless argument of Mr. Mill's, fall also his continuing remarks, which, that we may not be held to be unfairly suppressing anything, we give in full :

So monstrous a principle,' he says, 'is far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty; there is no violation of liberty which it would not justify; it acknowledges no right to any freedom whatever, except perhaps to that of holding opinions in secret, without ever disclosing them; for the moment an opinion, which I consider noxious, passes any one's lips, it invades all the social rights attributed to me by the Alliance [secretary he should have added]. The doctrine ascribes to

all

all mankind a vested interest in each other's moral, intellectual, and even physical perfection, to be defined by each claimant according to his own standard.'

Surely a man of Mr. Mill's depth of thought must admit the existence of such an interest. Surely, in the correlative influence of society upon each of its members, we each have an intense interest in the moral, intellectual, and physical perfection of each other. It is not here, surely, that Mr. Mill claims to discern error in the honorary secretary's teaching. The point is that we cannot decide with absolute knowledge who is nearest that perfection, and that if we could we have no right to restrict individual exercise of inborn powers to this extent; but, as we have already said, the legislation claimed by the honorary secretary was, not to interfere with the deeds or words of individuals, but with the deeds and words of the State, as developed in the laws concerning the liquor traffic.

Under the head of 'Applications,' page 171, speaking of the Maine Law, Mr. Mill says: All interferences, where the object is to make it impossible or difficult to obtain a particular commodity, are objectionable, not as infringements on the liberty of the producer or seller, but on that of the buyer.' Quite so; but the object of the Permissive Bill of the United Kingdom Alliance is not to make it impossible or difficult to obtain a particular commodity. Its object is to take away that which has at all times been, what is now a universally recognised fruitful source of crime, pauperism, lunacy, disease, and death-viz., the public sale of alcoholic liquors. A source of these, because a many-headed temptation to intemperance.

It is true that this prohibition would, as a consequence, make it more difficult to obtain alcoholic liquors; but this is not the object of the interference, though it would be one of its results.

It is right to observe that our second axiom is nearly a counterpart of one of Mr. Mill's dicta. The dictum is :

'Again, there are many acts, which being directly injurious only to the agents themselves, ought not to be legally indicted, but which, if done publicly, are a violation of good manners, and coming thus within the category of offences against others, may be rightfully prohibited.'

Mr. Mill then passes on to the consideration of that which is contained in our third axiom-viz., the right of the State to deal with those persons whose interest is opposed to what is considered to be the public weal, such as keepers of gambling-houses. And here, as might be expected, his moral sense clashes with his jealousy of State interference; and he (to use his own words) will not venture to decide whether Vol. 9.-No. 35.

P

the

the arguments which may be adduced are sufficient to justify the moral anomaly of punishing the accessory (i.e., the gambling-house keeper) when the principal' (i.e., the gambler) whom, he says, you may not punish, 'is allowed to go free.'

Mr. Mill cannot decide this question. Society in England is so far in advance of Mr. Mill, that it has decided, while he still is fixed on the horns of the dilemma. It may have decided wrongly; we think not; but most certainly, if the decision is right about the gambling-house, a fortiori would the same decision apply to the public drinking house; and we, therefore, call on all who prefer the law on that subject in England to the law as it stands in Homburg or Baden-Baden, to give their adhesion to the principle contained in our third axiom, viz.:

That society has a right to forbid the institution or opening of public rooms, or other places calculated to produce, and, as shown by experience, resulting in, a temptation to the public performance of acts which, while allowed in private (as then resulting in but little harm to the common weal) are not, in the judgment of society, fit to be done in public.

ART. III.-THE LAND BEYOND THE FOREST.

LANCING over the map of Europe, it may surprise the

geographical tyro to note that at the eastern extremity of Hungary, in the midst of Transylvania, the names of places assume a positively German character. Words ending in burg, in stadt, and in dorf, suddenly appear in thick clusters, and succeed over a couple of degrees of longitude in keeping at bay the pack of Hungarian or other names which on all sides crowd all-prevailingly around them, and creep thinly even into their midst. On inquiry, it is found that a markedly Teutonic population actually exists in this district, with Magyars and Wallacks all around; a fragment hewn off the Teutonic block at a remote period, still existing at that distance from the bulk, and preserving, to a striking degree, the characteristics of its origin. For the latest information on the subject, we turn to a book recently published, from the pen of Mr. Charles Bonar.*

Some seven hundred years ago, to this district, then a wilderness, a large German population was drawn by the invi

*Transylvania: Its Products and Its People.' London: Longman, Green, Reader, and Dyer.