220 president's address — section g (i.). 



from the liberal faith that the best of all social worlds was that in which 

 the State interfered as little as possible. Even of Gladstone it has 

 been written (Paul's " Modei'n England," vol. V.. p. 2.31) : " The 

 special claims of labor did not appeal to him. His service to the work- 

 ing classes was the removal of taxes on food and on the raw material 

 of industry. He had no belief in limiting by law the hours of work 

 for mines or factories." It might be argued — and the course of 

 social and economic history supports the argument — that if the functions 

 of government were reduced to the required minimum what would 

 remain would not be free, self-governing individuals, harmoniously 

 co-operating with each other, but social groups, specialised associa- 

 tions, united for selfish interest and exploitation of society in general. 

 To remove the so-called despotism of the State would not be to set 

 up an individualistic paradise, but to leave the field free for other and 

 worse kinds of despotism — the despotism of the father, the despotism 

 of the employer, the despotism of the priest, not to speak of the tyranny 

 of social and commercial combinations which would have the " outward 

 forms and material advantages of sociali^^m, without its ideal — the 

 general good of the community." Liberalism, as well as socialism, 

 cannot do without Government intervention, whether we call such 

 intervention grandmotherly legislation, or simply the necessary exten- 

 sion of the economic functions of the State. The State is society 

 organised for the common good, for the protection of individuals 

 against groups, associations, unions of masters or unions of men, who, 

 without such common State action, would make freedom of individual 

 development impossible. To reduce State functions to a minimum 

 would be to reduce the possibility of individualism to a minimum. 

 Part of the strength of socialism as a fighting political creed just lies 

 in the recognition of this fact, and on the emphasis that socialistic 

 legislation is a means, and not the final end, of politics. The eminent 

 French socialist and statesman, J. Jaures, declares socialism to be 

 " the supreme assertion of individiial right. Socialists desire to uni- 

 versalise human culture. For us the nature of every institution is 

 relative to the individual. There is nothing above the individual. 

 The individual is the measure of all things — of family, property, 

 humnnity, God. Voila la logique de V idee revolutionnaire. Voila 

 le socialisme." 



We may, then, dismiss as a false antithesis the opposition between 

 individual and social interest which has been in the past, and is still, 

 the source of so much futile political controversy. The question of 

 practical politics in this respect is not different from the theoretical 

 question. It is not a question of the maximum or minimum of inter- 

 ference on the part of a Government supposed to stand outside and 

 aloof from the classes to be governed. It is a question of social self- 

 organisation, and a question not so much — except for fanatics and 

 extremists — of the quantity as of the quality of such social self-organisa- 

 tion, of how far the forms of social and political organisation will help 

 and not hinder the free self-development of the members of the com- 

 munity. In a word, the question is — How shall we help the individual 



