national scandal and the national mischief of
drunkenness, by limiting the places and hours at
which, and the persons to whom, intoxicating
liquors may be sold by retail. It is neither the
right nor the duty of the State to enforce teetotal-
ism upon all who are not rich enough to keep a
supply of alcoholic drinks in their own houses

(b) As to sexual ethics, it is the function of the State to
guard, with the most anxious solicitude and the
deepest reverence, the sacrosanct rights arising out
of marriage, in no wise to countenance concu-
binage, and by wise regulations to minimise the
mischiefs resulting from the practically necessary
evil of prostitution
(c) It is the function of the State effectively to restrain
and severely to punish cruelty to the lower ani-
mals, as a demoralising and cowardly abuse of
power

Fourth. What is the Function of the State with regard

It is a mere truism to say that the State should care for
the corporal soundness of its subjects. In practice
its greatest difficulties in discharging that duty
arise from the tyranny of faddists
Fifth. What is the Function of the State in the sphere
of contract?

Certainly, to preserve and vindicate its freedom

But this freedom is not absolute; it is a freedom on conditions prescribed by the State for the maintenance of general right

A contract is a promise which the State recognizes as binding, and will enforce with all the power of the courts.

And so viewed it is a limitation of a man's freedom: it

is a binding agreement for the diminution of per-
sonal liberty

.

There are many things as to which the State does not permit such freedom; well-recognised classes of agreements which it does not and should not validate and enforce .

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Conspicuous among such agreements should be reckoned those tainted by usury, in respect of which it is the function of the State to intervene for the protection of individual rights and of its own supreme right. 90 Equally justifiable, and indeed necessary, is its intervention, in many cases, for the restriction and regulation of industrial agreements. In such contracts the action of private interest cannot be relied upon as all-sufficient. Human labour is not mere merchandise

The contrary doctrine, insisted upon by the old "orthodox" Political Economy issued in the establishment of a tyranny of capital of the most odious kind, based upon a fictitious freedom of contract.

This doctrine has now largely fallen into discredit, chiefly through the influence of the German historical School of Political Economists, which has laboured successfully to overthrow the old doctrine of laissez-faire, to bring out the insufficiency of personal interest as the sole rôle of economic action, to insist upon the principle that the State, as an organism—and an ethical organism-has a most important function with regard to the industrial contracts of its subjects

To the apprehension of this principle we owe the long series of Truck Acts, Mines Acts, Factory and

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Workshop Acts, and the like measures, which have, in some degree, broken down the tyranny of capital but in some degree only. Even now we see multitudes working inhuman hours, with unremitting toil, for wages seldom sufficient, and often a mockery, in horrible insanitary conditions . 97 For the redress of these horrors we must look to the ever-deepening apprehension of the truth that side by side with those rights of capital, which the State so efficiently protected by its laws that they became wrongs of the most terrible kind, there are rights of labour which the State is equally bound to protect

Such is the right to real freedom of contract
The right to a justum pretium, or fair wage

98

98

99

And the right to some public provision, other than modified imprisonment in a workhouse, for old age. 102 The interference of the State may also be legitimate and necessary, when industrial contracts issue in strikes and lock-outs. Combinations of workmen and capitalists are in themselves perfectly justifiable; strikes and lock-outs may, on occasion, be quite justifiable

Which is not the same thing as saying that all the methods of Trade Unions are justifiable

But it is absurd to suppose that individual freedom is, or ever can be, the sole force by which society is regulated labour is a social function; property is a social trust; and the organised polity-the State -in which only profitable labour is possible and property is valid, may rightly determine on what

. 103

103

. 105

. 109

conditions labour should be done, and property
possessed

It is the duty of the modern State to repress the in-
dustrial war waged by means of strikes and lock-
outs, just as it was the duty of the medieval State
to put down private war

But the direct intervention of the State is not the only
way of dealing with the social and economical rela-
tions between Capital and Labour. There is also
the more excellent way of industrial association
As to which the nineteenth century, and the twentieth,
might well learn a lesson from the Middle Ages
Sixth. What is the Function of the State with regard
to the land?
In considering that question, we must first remember
that there is this great difference between the soil
and other subjects of property-its quantity cannot
be multiplied. Hence it is that a man's ownership
of land must be regarded as being of a more lim-
ited and restricted kind than his ownership of
chattels

The doctrine of the English law that a man can hold only an estate in land, is a perfectly sound doctrine, and the conception of land as an exchangeable commodity, differing only from others in the limitation of supply, is a faulty conception

The true justification of private property in land is, that, as a matter of fact, it tends to the general benefit and the test whereby the advantage of one land system over another should be judged, is the advantage of the community.

Such is the first principle governing this matter. And

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112

113

113

115

115

116

116

if in the light of it we consider the land system of
England, it is difficult to understand how any in-
telligent person can maintain that this system
ought not, in the public interests, to be largely
modified

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The English land laws, enacted chiefly by landlords, sacrifice to their interests, in many ways, the just claims of tenants and the community at large; and contrast most unfavourably with the corresponding provisions of the Civil Law and the Code Napoléon 118 No doubt the existence of large landed properties in this country is more for the common good than would be the universal prevalence of small real estates, the land being the only basis possible among us of a "directing class." But, side by side with the large properties, there should be the lesser ones of yeomen and peasants. It is a function of the State to promote by wise legislation an immense increase of small landowners

Seventh. What is the function of the State with regard to the Social Order? .

"Our present type of society is, in many respects, one of the most horrible that has ever existed in the world's history boundless luxury and self-indulgence at one end of the scale, and at the other a condition of life as cruel as that of a Roman slave, and more degraded than that of a South Sea Islander "

The vast disparity of condition which exists in the social order is a huge social danger. Too great inequalities, too violent contrasts in the distribution of wealth, are contrary to the true law of the social organism. A remedy must be found for "the

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121