Law in a free state – Wordsworth Donisthorpe
Addressed to the large body of English men who, while inclined to individualism,” inconsistently appeal to socialism for the attainment of certain ends which at first sight seem to be unattainable under a regime of freedom.” Questions of libel, of cruelty to animals, of copyright, of adulteration, of the relation of the sexes, of rights over land, of nuisance and many others. Mr. Donisthorpe considers difficult to solve straight off on the principle of equal liberty. Still that they may be so solved he shows in nine chapters which discuss many social questions from both the Individualists and Socialists standpoint.
Law in a free state
Format: eBook.
Law in a free state.
ISBN: 9783849653477.
Excerpt from the first chapter:
It is sometimes said that the system of party government is on its trial in this country. Not at all. It is not denied that it has worked well so far; that it has saved English institutions from democratic imperialism; and that no other system known to the historian is capable of doing this. Yet it is asserted that, for some reason or another, the system has reached its highest development, and even passed its zenith; that it no longer serves any useful purpose; and that, in short, it is played out. To begin with, there arises an increasing cry against “partisanship,” the “fetish party,” and “caucus-despotism”—a cry which is taken up by the more robust and independent political thinkers. The party sheepdogs confess to an ever-growing difficulty in keeping their flocks apart. Cross-voting is on the increase. On every conceivable question, except that with which, for the moment, the existence of the Government is bound up, it is impossible to say beforehand what an analysis of the division lists will disclose. Surprises are frequent. Again, it is becoming daily more difficult to define party names. Thirty years ago no one describing himself as a Liberal would have had the slightest difficulty in explaining what he meant by the term. He would have said, “I am in favour of popular government as opposed to oligarchy.” One calling himself a Tory would have said that he disapproved of democratising the Constitution. Nowadays all is changed. We have persons calling themselves Tory-Democrats, and we have self-styled Liberals opposing extension of the franchise.
From this it is clear that, unless a large number of apparently intelligent persons have lost their reason, and talk and think in self-contradictory terms, party names must have changed their meanings. Liberal and Conservative no longer signify Democratic and Anti-Democratic, but something else.
The fact is politicians have been slowly and unconsciously regrouping themselves according to principles as fundamental and important as the old ones, but having little in common with them. Questions of the Constitution of the State have ceased to excite the interest which they formerly did. When the voice of the bulk of the population was stifled, when the will of the few stood for the will of all, other questions paled before the paramount question of representation. Now that the battle has been fought and well-nigh won; now that the old Liberals have obtained all they asked—with the exception of a few minor points which are a matter of time only—questions of State structure have lost their attraction. No large section of the people has much fault to find with the Constitution; and their attention is at last turned to the more urgent question of State function-the question, What ought the State to do? Doubtless some few Liberals of the old school still feel that something remains to be done before the Constitution is really complete and symmetrical. The abolition of the hereditary principle, as embodied in the Monarchy and the Upper House of the Legislature, is enough to absorb the energies of some of these; others point out that even universal manhood suffrage is not perfect democratic equality, so long as women remain disfranchised. Others, again, resent the interference of a dominant religious sect in the affairs of the nation. While some few, no doubt, are so fanatically logical and so consistently Liberal as to refuse to consider any question of Government duty, so long as a peer under sentence of death may claim to be hanged with a silken rope while a commoner must put up with a hempen one.
But although persons who put these questions in the forefront still exist as survivals from the days when Liberalism was a living religion, a quickening spirit, it is abundantly evident that the main body of political thinkers have long ceased to trouble themselves much about them. “Oh, never mind that, it will come of itself”; or, “It is dying, let it die”; “That is not worth powder and shot, we have other things to attend to”; such are the answers which even advanced party men make to the rump of the old school.
And what is it which casts into the shade the completion of the old work? Foreign affairs? No. Taxation? No; both parties are ready to make the taxpayer bear the cost of the necessary bribery. Religious discipline? No; that salt has lost its savour. Then what is it which diverts the energies of practical politicians from the great work of democratisation? The truth is, that while the battle for equality is well-nigh won, the battle for liberty is hardly yet begun. The question of the day is, Individualism or Socialism? Is the welfare of the race bound up with the freedom or with the slavery of the Individual?
Does a so-called Liberal Government bring in and carry a bill forbidding free bargains between landlord and tenant? What of it? A Conservative Government similarly brings in and carries a bill forbidding free bargains between manufacturers and their workpeople. Do Conservatives coerce a citizen to declare his belief in a particular religious dogma, or to forfeit his right to represent his fellow-countrymen? What of it? Liberals similarly, and with equal tyranny, coerce unbelievers to adopt certain medical precautions which appear to them not only inefficacious, but dangerous and dirty. Do Liberals vote away part of the property of urban landowners to build houses for their poorer neighbours? What of it? Conservatives propose measures to compel those who have invested their hard-earned savings in railways to carry the same poorer neighbours at less than cost of transport. Both parties alike agree to prohibit lotteries, lest foolish Yorkshiremen, Jews, Scotchmen, and Quakers, should buy an even chance of winning a shilling for sevenpence. But the plane of party cleavage is readjusting itself. Those who decry State interference are crystallising; those who advocate it to a qualified extent cannot long hold aloof from those who adopt it logically and consistently-the Socialists. The old party ties, based on personal attachments and the memory of old battles, are slackening, as one by one old veterans drop off and are replaced by younger men.
Before we are competent to define the proper sphere of State action with any degree of accuracy, we must survey the whole field covered by officialism at the present day, in this country and in other countries, and in past times. By the use of the comparative method, we shall possibly be enabled to detect permanent tendencies which will guide us in predicting the probable limitations of State action among civilised communities of the future. This work has not yet been done, or even begun, and it may be some help to those of us who are seriously considering this most important of all political questions of the day, if we cast our eye over the province of Governmental interference in our own country, with a view to ascertaining what substitutes for such action have in various directions been suggested, and how far they are feasible. From a condition of tribal socialism, Englishmen have taken many centuries to attain their present degree of civil liberty, and it is admitted that considerable remnants of the old patriarchal socialism still remain, and are likely to remain (though possibly in diminishing quantities) for many years, decades, and perhaps centuries to come. In so far as such socialism is necessary, because we are not yet ripe for absolute individualism, we are bound to regard it as beneficent socialism. It is none the less socialism. It must be understood then that in the following review of existing State interferences, no opinion is expressed on their goodness or badness.
Although there is no particular order in which State functions need be considered, it may be well to begin with those which are admitted by most people to be normal functions, and to pass on to those which are condemned by larger and larger numbers, till we come to those which even socialists would hardly defend.
First, then, we find that the State undertakes the defence of the country against foreign aggression. It maintains at the general expense a costly army and navy. It builds forts and ships, and supplies itself with all requirements in connection therewith. Some persons contend that it should not make its own guns and ammunition; that it should not build its own ships, or construct its own military railways; that it should not even erect its own fortifications; but that it should purchase all such things and services from private persons, under suitable contracts, regulated by competition. Over and above the defence of the country the State goes further; it follows the trade of its citizens to the uttermost parts of the earth, and for their protection keeps up lines of communication along the water highways. It holds other peoples in subjection, partly for their own good, but chiefly for the commercial advantage of Englishmen. Some people think that traders should be left to take care of themselves, to raise and maintain their own armies and fleets, as the East India Company did last century.
The next State function of which the large majority approve is the maintenance at home of law and order; that is to say, the defence of every citizen against the aggression of other citizens, and the enforcement of promises of a certain kind (contracts). With few exceptions, no one disputes the propriety of this State work. The performance requires the maintenance of Courts of Justice and an army of police. The extent to which the State should go in preventing crime is keenly disputed. Some, for instance, would prohibit the carrying of firearms; others would allow the storing of dynamite in private houses, leaving the consequences to private responsibility. Recourse has been had recently to spies and informers; some consider this bad, others maintain that it is defensible.
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