XXIV ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 443 



operative communities, on the plan so clearly laid down 

 by Mr. Herbert V. Mills in his work on Poverty and the 

 State (and sufficiently explained in Chap. XXVI. of this 

 volume) may also be established, and various forms of 

 co-operative manufacture can be tried. 



The Inviolahility of the Home. 



But until this great reform can be effected there is a 

 smaller and less radical measure of relief to all tenants, 

 which should at once be advocated and adopted by the 

 Liberal party. It is an old boast that the Englishman's 

 house is his castle, but never was a boast less justified by- 

 facts. In a large number of cases a working man's house 

 might be better described as an instrument of torture, by 

 means of which he can be forced to comply with his land- 

 lord's demands, and both in religion and politics submit 

 himself entirely to the landlord's will. So long as the 

 agricultural labourer, the village mechanic, and the village 

 shopkeeper are the tenants of the landowner, the parson, 

 or the farmer, religious freedom or political independence 

 is impossible. And when those employed in factories or 

 workshops are obliged to live, as they so often are, in 

 houses which are the property of their employers, that 

 employer can force his will upon them by the double 

 threat of loss of employment and loss of a home. Under 

 such conditions a man possesses neither freedom nor safety, 

 nor the possibility of happiness, except so far as his land- 

 lord and employer thinks proper. A secure Home is the 

 very first essential alike of political freedom, of personal 

 security, and of social well-being. 



Now that every worker, even to the hitherto despised 

 and down-trodden agricultural labourer, has been given a 

 share in local self-government, it is time that, so far as 

 affects the inviolability of the home, the landlord's power 

 should be at once taken away from him. This is the 

 logical sequence of the creation of Parish Councils. For, 

 to declare that it is for the public benefit that every 

 inhabitant of a parish shall be free to vote and to be chosen 

 as a representative by his fellow parishioners, and at the 



