16 Proceedings. 



MANAWATU PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



FiusT Mektino : l//h March, lUlO. 



The President, Mr. W. ¥ . Durward, in the chair. 



New Members. — Messrs. G. H. Bennett, J. Mounsey, C. N. Taplin. 



Papers. — 1. "The New Zealand Saddleback," by W. W. Smith, 

 F.E.S. 



2. "The Ancient Maori, and some of his Peculiarities." by L>. 

 Sinclair, C.E. 



The Secretary reported that since the last meeting between foity and 

 tifty fresh exhibits had been received at the Museum, and that the need 

 of increased accommodation was becoming daily more urgent, as it was 

 impossible under present conditions to make use of the Museum for 

 educational purposes. 



Seco>.d Meeting : iht April, 1910. 



The President, Mr. W. F. Durward, in the chair. 

 The Hon. Dr. Findlay, K.C., gave a lecture on " I^egal Liberty." 



The lecturer described the evolution of government in England, and the various 

 influences at work, attributing the theories ultimately adopted to the French 

 dreamer Rousseau's philosophy of government as embodied in " Le Contrat Social," 

 published in 1762, that were adopted in the Fiench Revolution, and have replaced 

 the teachings of John Stuart Mill in England. 



The lecturer summarized his conclusions thus : There is in Anglo-Saxon nations 

 an excessive impatience of State interference, due partly to the struggle by which 

 freedom has in the past lieen wrested from Government. That in their attitude 

 towards the powers of the State the people of our nation are apt to ignore the 

 fact that it is only from these powers and under their protection alone that they 

 derive their rights and liberties. For many centuries man has been trying to find 

 some scientific boundary between the rights of the individual and those of the State ; 

 and the theories of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Adam Smith resulted in the 

 doctrines of natural liberty which limit the State's functions to those of keeping 

 order and protecting rights, while they extend the area of individual freedom to 

 the widest extent possible without injury to the rights of others. This led to a 

 fanatical individualism, under which the condition of the English labourer was 

 worse than at any previous period of English history. The school of natural 

 liljerty still largely dominates orthodox economic thought. It is based upon the 

 cosmic process, the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest, and is 

 opposed to the moral or ethical process of human betterment. Thought and experi- 

 ence has shown that in modern nations the system of natural liberty is not a policy 

 of true social progress ; that, on the contrary, such progress can be attained only 

 by limiting greatly individual liberty and by eliminating the struggle for a bare exist- 

 ence. That the true policy of progress in modern nations is not the mere protection 

 by the State of legal rights, but provision by the State of the conditions which 

 are essentials to the wetfare of the people. That for the improvement of those 

 coerced, and for the provision of the conditions of general welfare, the State may, 

 in defiance of the tenets of individualism, properly curtail individual liberty. That, 

 as the solidarity of a nation increases and society becomes increasingly organized, 

 the closer relation and intei'dependence of the units of population necessitate a 

 lestricted area of individual freedom. That conceptions of the area of personal 

 freedom have changed with changes in our national aims, and a policy of "Want 

 and Vice and their Reduction " is slowly supplanting the cardinal policy "Wealth 

 and its Production." That the trend of the freest democracies is towards a State 

 paternalism. That the national character and temper of our nation may be trusted 

 to prevent any serious limitation of the area of liberty really essential to a self- 

 lespecting vigorous manhood. 



At the close of the lecture the chairman spoke eulogistically upon it, and so did 

 Mr. E. 1). Hoben, who moved a vote of thanks on behalf of the Society, and Mr. 

 IV Buick, M.P.. who seconded it. 



