PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION G (l.), 623 



All these effects must — according to the individualist school — 

 inevitably follow from the intrusion of the State into the domain until 

 recently left almost entirely to individual enterprise. 



The position assumed by these persons is very natural : self- 

 interest and ignorance of certain principles in connection with the 

 ■development of society explain and excuse their attitude. It is, 

 however, in my opinion, both unscientific and illogical. 



I have said that the State ought to interfere with the individual 

 only when such interference is necessary for his own happiness or that 

 of his fellow citizens. It ought not to interfere because it is strong, 

 or in pursuance of some plan to make people happy in its own way. 

 The individual ought to be permitted to be happy in his own way. 

 In the opinion of some this way may not be the best ; but unless the 

 happiness of others is materially disturbed, or their scope of action 

 seriously restricted, the individual ought to be allowed to go his own 

 way. To compel people to wear a particular kind of dress, live in a 

 certain kind of house, eat certain foods, and drink, or abstain from 

 drinking, certain liquids, are all unwarrantable interference with their 

 liberty. Only one reason can justify interference in this or any other 

 direction — that the freedom and happiness and welfare of the general 

 community cannot be secured without it. The State has no right to 

 interfere at all apart from this. On the other hand, the individual has 

 no rights superior to or independent of this right of the State to interfere 

 for the benefit of the community. 



Once postulate that such interference is desirable, and it is not 

 the right to interfere that is then in question, but only the method and 

 extent of such interference. 



The right of personal freedom is the basis of all individual liberty, 

 yet nothing is more clearly established than the right of the State to 

 restrain by imprisonment this freedom. There are no individual 

 rights which, in a proper case, the State cannot and does not invade. 

 It can inflict corporal punishment, and even take away life itself. 



These facts are so familiar that they are in danger of being over- 

 looked. The State may, and does every day, restrain the liberty of 

 the individual in a hundred ways. In countries governed upon a 

 democratic basis all those interferences have the approval of the majority 

 of the citizens. In all countries certain acts of the State have the 

 sanction of the people. No one, for example, except, perhaps, the 

 criminal classes, doubts that laws for preventing theft and murder are 

 very necessary, although there may be differences of opinion as to the 

 most effective way of doing this. 



I come now to another point of great importance, and one frequently 

 forgotten. The sphere of State activity is not definite and immutable. 

 On the contrary, it is ever changing, and in modern society ever ex- 

 tending. Acts permitted in primitive communities without restraint 

 are in a more advanced state of civilisation subject to the most rigid 

 regulations, or not allowed at all. 



Sanitary laws may be quoted as illustrations of this tendency in 

 the ordinary sphere, and factory legislation in the industrial sphere. 



