1S4 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



on the side of one of the prime elements in true 

 hberty. If the Society deals blows at anything, 

 it is at licence. It battles for law and order, and its 

 battles are on the side of the angels — on the side of 

 the veriest of platitudes : ' Without law and order, 

 there is no true liberty.' To allow the indi- 

 vidualist's reading of the word would be to allow 

 freedom to clash with liberty ; egotistical indi- 

 viduahsm in freedom is only too apt to be one 

 of Liberty's direst enemies. JVIr. Dooley, with 

 his usual quaint acumen, says : ' A man can't 

 be indipindint onless he has a boss'; and in this 

 present case the necessary boss is the Ligue. 

 Without it we should continue to have such 

 freedom as would extinguish the Edelweiss around 

 Zermatt as it has extinguished the Chamois around 

 Chamounix. 



Men for ages have been singing hymns to Liberty 

 in the Alps of Switzerland, but never before, 

 probably, have they sung to finer effect than since 

 the Society for the Protection of Plants took the 

 field and spread additional light. Liberty has 

 received a larger, wider meaning, and never has 

 hymn been sung with truer significance than 

 to-day is Eugene Humbert's inspiring song, 'Les 

 Alpes ': 



