10 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [r. 



is to say how private enterprise would come out if it 

 tried its hand at State work ? Those who have had most 

 experience of joint-stock companies and their manage- 

 ment, will probably be least inclined to believe in the 

 innate superiority of private enterprise over State man- 

 agement. If continental bureaucracy and centralization 

 be fraught with multitudinous evils, surely English 

 beadleocracy and parochial obstruction are not altogether 

 lovely. If it be said that, as a matter of political expe- 

 rience, it is found to be for the best interests, including 

 the healthy and free development, of a people, that the 

 State should restrict itself to what is absolutely necessary, 

 and should leave to the voluntary efforts of individuals 

 as much as voluntary effort can be got to do, nothing 

 can be more just. But, on the other hand, it seems to 

 me that nothing can be less justifiable than the dogmatic 

 assertion that State interference, beyond the limits of 

 home and foreign police, must, under all circumstances, 

 do harm. 



Suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that we 

 accept the proposition that the functions of the State 

 may be properly summed up in the one great negative 

 commandment, " Thou shalt not allow any man to 

 interfere with the liberty of any other man," I am 

 unable to see that the logical consequence is any such 

 restriction of the power of Government, as its sup- 

 porters imply. If my next-door neighbour chooses to 

 have his drains in such a state as to create a poisonous 

 atmosphere, which I breathe at the risk of typhus and 

 diphtheria, he restricts my just freedom to live just as 

 much as if he went about with a pistol, threatening my 

 life ; if he is to be allowed to let his children go unvac- 

 cinated, he might as well be allowed to leave strychnine 

 lozenges about in the way of mine ; and if he brings 

 them up untaught and untrained to earn their living, he 



