EDITOR'S TABLE. 



699 



"then occur to me that the Vene- 

 tians had a right to expect from a 

 free state what they unconsciously 

 and yet really expected security 

 from want and from the fear of 

 want." Had such a notion been 

 suggested to him, he adds, he would 

 have laughed it to scorn. 



Mr. Howells has lived to recog- 

 nize that citizenship in a free coun- 

 try does not always make a man 

 free. It is here that he agrees with 

 Mr. Spencer. Political liberty, he 

 says, "appears something final, abso- 

 lute, a good in itself ; but it is never 

 a good in itself, and is never final ; 

 it is a means to something good." 

 According to Mr. Spencer (Justice, 

 Chapter XXII), the man's real rights 

 are the right to live, or, as he more 

 comprehensively expresses it, to 

 44 physical integrity," the right to free- 

 dom of movement, the right to receive 

 and enjoy what he has earned, the 

 right of free exchange, free contract 

 and free industry, and, finally, the 

 right of free belief, free worship, and 

 free speech. Apart from these, any 

 claims a man may have must, Mr. 

 Spencer says, be of a different kind 

 and "can not be classed as rights." 

 As regards the franchise, all we can 

 properly say of it is that it "gives 

 the citizens in general powers of 

 checking trespasses upon their 

 rights " powers, he adds, " which 

 they may or may not use to good 

 purpose. " That they are not always 

 used to good purpose is evidenced by 

 the fact that, in more than one 

 country where universal suffrage 

 exists, real rights are trampled on. 

 Our own country, we regret to say, 

 is used by the author of the Syn- 

 thetic Philosophy as an example. 

 " Universal suffrage," he observes, 

 " does not prevent the corruptions 

 of municipal governments, which 

 impose heavy taxes and do very 

 inefficient work ; does not prevent 

 citizens from being coerced in their 



private lives by dictating what they 

 shall not drink ; does not prevent an 

 enormous majority of consumers 

 from being heavily taxed by a pro- 

 tective tariff for the benefit of a 

 small minority of manufacturers 

 and artisans ; nay, does not even 

 effectually preserve men from vio- 

 lent deaths, but in sundry States 

 allows of frequent murders, checked 

 only by law officers who are them- 

 selves liable to be shot in the per- 

 formance of their duties." 



When Mr. Howells, therefore, 

 made the discovery that political lib- 

 erty might not mean liberty in any 

 very wide sense, he discovered a truth, 

 and one of serious import; but when 

 he went on and attached to the idea 

 of liberty certain advantages which 

 individual success in the carrying on 

 of life alone can give, he went, in our 

 opinion, very far astray, and formu- 

 lated a doctrine essentially danger- 

 ous to the well-being of society. We 

 really wonder how so broad and seri- 

 ous a thinker can bring himself to 

 write as he does in the article to 

 which we have referred. He says : 

 " If the Venetians had agreed with 

 Italy when they were united to it 

 that thenceforward all should be 

 guaranteed the means of livelihood, 

 they would really have all freed 

 themselves. If the French Revolu- 

 tion had established these conditions, 

 the first republic would still be one 

 and indivisible." The nature of lib- 

 erty, then, according to Mr. Howells, 

 is not alike for all men : to some it 

 means the right to claim a livelihood 

 from others, and to those others it 

 means the obligation to provide the 

 first with a livelihood. It would be 

 interesting to see a document drawn 

 up which should establish liberty in 

 this sense of the word ; and after it 

 was drawn up it would be interest- 

 ing to witness its execution. The 

 visages of the guaranteed parties 

 would, no doubt, betoken a consider- 



