president's address — SECTION G (i.). 219 



of the same data. Both stand for ideals which, as they are described 

 in theory, never have existed, and, it is safe to say, never will exist, 

 in any society of human beings. And the confusion of present politics 

 is due to the fact that opposing parties are compelled in practice to 

 make illogical concessions to each other, to adopt in turn each other's 

 policy, while reprobating each other's principles, with the result that 

 the non-voting majority of the electors continue in their attitude of 

 indifference, and are more than ever convinced that politics is a game, 

 and a general election a kind of sham fight. I do not urge this as 

 an objection to that spirit of compromise which is a necessity of practical 

 politics and the source of the strength and permanence of our national 

 institutions. We are concerned here with political science rather 

 than with political practice. But I would respectfully ask whether 

 our political practice would not gain if a clearer recognition of the 

 changed conditions of social life brought with it a change in the nature 

 of political controversy. There are so many live issues to be determined 

 that it seems a pity to waste our energies over the discussion of dead 

 ones. 



The controversy over the question of Government interference 

 seems to me to be in great measure a fight over a dead issue. The 

 economic theorists of the first half of the nineteenth century were 

 acutely aware of the evils which stupid restrictions on industry and 

 commerce had engendered and fostered, and they set themselves the 

 task of inquiring into what would follow on the entire abolition of 

 such restrictions. The result of their inquiry was the establishment 

 of the traditional political economy which provided a mistaken political 

 gospel to the leaders of the great liberal movement. The mistake was 

 made of treating economic generalisations as moral laws of conduct. 

 The doctrine of non-interference was preached, and was extended from 

 trade relations to almost all the relations which constitute social life. 

 The exponents of the liberal creed did not go so far as the philosophic 

 anarchists of our time, who boldly demand the abolition of all Govern- 

 ment interference. Yet they sought, in theory and practice, to reduce 

 the functions of the State to a minimum which could be defined once 

 for all, in set terms, as the defence of the lives and property of the 

 individual members of society. It was thought that at last liberalism 

 had found a final creed, of which it could say, J'y suis, fij reste. But 

 political creeds represent milestones on the road, rather than per- 

 manent abodes. 



The most effective refutation of a fallacy is to point to its practical 

 disproof in experience. The actual course of liberal legislation was the 

 experimental disproof of the narrow and negative doctrine of non- 

 interference with the economic organisation of society. At the same 

 time almost every new extension of government control, every new 

 successful demand that the business of the State was the organisation 

 of society for certain common purposes and interests, the most im- 

 portant of which was its own economic well-being, was met by the 

 assertion that the new act was only an exception, or a concession, to 

 circumstances, in no wise to be interpreted as a permanent departure 



