THE INDUSTRIAL TYPE OF SOCIETY. i 7 



and it is really difficult to find any evidence that the people were 

 thought of at all, except in the relation of obedience." " The Govern- 

 ment regarded the people with little other view than as a taxable and 

 soldier-yielding mass." While the militant part of the community 

 had greatly developed, the industrial part had approached toward the 

 condition of a permanent commissariat. By conscription and by press- 

 gangs was carried to a relatively vast extent that sacrifice of the citi- 

 zen in life and liberty which war entails ; and the claims to property 

 were trenched upon by merciless taxation, weighing down the middle 

 classes so grievously that they had greatly to lower their rate of liv- 

 ing, while the people at large were so distressed (partly no doubt by 

 bad harvests) that " hundreds ate nettles and other weeds." With 

 these major aggressions upon the individual by the state went numer- 

 ous minor aggressions. Irresponsible agents of the executive were 

 empowered to suppress public meetings and seize their leaders ; death 

 being the punishment for those who did not disperse when ordered. 

 Libraries and news-rooms could not be opened without license ; and it 

 was penal to lend books without permission. There were " strenuous 

 attempts made to silence the press " ; and booksellers dared not pub- 

 lish works by obnoxious authors. " Spies were paid, witnesses were 

 suborned, juries were packed, and, the habeas corpus act being con- 

 stantly suspended, the crown had the power of imprisoning without in- 

 quiry and without limitation." While the Government taxed and co- 

 erced and restrained the citizen to this extent, its protection of him was 

 inefficient. It is true that the penal code was made more extensive and 

 more severe : the definition of treason was enlarged, and many trans- 

 gressions were made capital which were not capital before ; so that 

 there was " a vast and absurd variety of offenses for which men and 

 women were sentenced to death by the score " : there was " a devilish 

 levity in dealing with human life." But at the same time there was 

 not increase but rather decrease of security. As says Mr. Pike, in his 

 " History of Crime," " It became apparent that the greater the strain 

 of the conflict the greater is the danger of a reaction toward violence 

 and lawlessness." Turn now to the opposite pictui*e. After recovery 

 from the prostration which prolonged wars had left, and the dying 

 away of those social perturbations caused by impoverishment, there 

 began a revival of traits proper to the industrial type. Coercion of 

 the citizen by the state decreased in various ways. Voluntary enlist- 

 ment replaced compulsory military service ; and there disappeared 

 some minor restraints over personal freedom, as instance the repeal of 

 laws which forbade artisans to travel where they pleased, and which 

 interdicted trades-unions. With these manifestations of greater re- 

 spect for personal freedom may be joined those shown in the amelio- 

 ration of the penal code : the public whipping of females being first 

 abolished, then the long list of capital offenses being reduced until 

 there finally remained but one, and eventually the pillory and impris- 



VOL. XX. 2 



