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diff --git a/78171-0.txt b/78171-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..260fadf --- /dev/null +++ b/78171-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4964 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78171 *** + + + + + LIBERTY + IN THE + MODERN STATE + + _By + HAROLD J. LASKI_ + + _Professor of Political Science + in the University of London_ + + + 1930 + PUBLISHERS + _HARPER & BROTHERS_ + NEW YORK AND LONDON + + + LIBERTY + IN THE + MODERN + STATE + + _Copyright, 1930, + by Harold J. Laski. + Printed in the + United States._ + + FIRST EDITION + + + TO + FRIDA + AND + DIANA + + + + + _CONTENTS_ + + + I. THE NATURE OF LIBERTY 1 + + II. FREEDOM OF THE MIND 80 + + III. LIBERTY AND SOCIAL POWER 195 + + IV. THE OUTLOOK FOR LIBERTY 279 + + + + +LIBERTY IN THE MODERN STATE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE NATURE OF LIBERTY + + +I + +I mean by liberty the absence of restraint upon the existence of those +social conditions which, in modern civilization, are the necessary +guarantees of individual happiness. I seek to inquire into the terms +upon which it is attainable in the Western world, and, more especially, +to find those rules of conduct to which political authority must +conform if its subjects are, in a genuine sense, to be free. + +Already, therefore, I am maintaining a thesis. I am arguing, first, +that liberty is essentially an absence of restraint. It implies power +to expand, the choice by the individual of his own way of life without +imposed prohibitions from without. Men cannot, as Rousseau claimed, +be forced into freedom. They do not, as Hegel insisted, find their +liberty in obedience to the law. They are free when the rules under +which they live leave them without a sense of frustration in realms +they deem significant. They are unfree whenever the rules to which they +have to conform compel them to conduct which they dislike and resent. I +do not deny that there are types of conduct against which prohibitions +are desirable: I ought, for instance, to be compelled, even against +my wish, to educate my children. But I am arguing that any rule which +demands from me something I would not otherwise give is a diminution of +my freedom. + +A second implication is important. My thesis involves the view that if +in any state there is a body of men who possess unlimited political +power, those over whom they rule can never be free. For the one assured +result of historical investigation is the lesson that uncontrolled +power is invariably poisonous to those who possess it. They are +always tempted to impose their canon of good upon others, and, in the +end, they assume that the good of the community depends upon the +continuance of their power. Liberty always demands a limitation of +political authority, and it is never attained unless the rulers of a +state can, where necessary, be called to account. That is why Pericles +insisted that the secret of liberty is courage. + +By making liberty the absence of restraint, I make it, of course, a +purely negative condition. I do not thereby mean to assume that a man +will be the happier the more completely restraints are absent from the +society to which he belongs. In a community like our own, the pressure +of numbers and the diversity of desires, make necessary both rules and +compulsions. Each of these is a limitation upon freedom. Some of them +are essential to happiness, but that does not make them for a moment +less emphatically limitations. Our business is to secure such a balance +between the liberty we need and the authority that is essential as to +leave the average man with the clear sense that he has elbow-room for +the continuous expression of his personality. + +Nor must we confound liberty with certain other goods without which +it has no meaning. There may be absence of restraint in the economic +sphere, for example, in the sense that a man may be free to enter any +vocation he may choose. Yet if he is deprived of security in employment +he becomes the prey of a mental and physical servitude incompatible +with the very essence of liberty. Nevertheless, economic security is +not liberty though it is a condition without which liberty is never +effective. I do not mean that those who can take their ease in Zion are +thereby free men. Once and for all, let us agree that property alone +does not make a man free. But those who know the normal life of the +poor, its perpetual fear of the morrow, its haunting sense of impending +disaster, its fitful search for beauty which perpetually eludes, will +realize well enough that, without economic security, liberty is not +worth having. Men may well be free and yet remain unable to realize the +purposes of freedom. + +Again, we live in a big world, about which, at our peril, we have +to find our way. There can, under these conditions, be no freedom +that is worth while unless the mind is trained to use its freedom. We +cannot, otherwise, make explicit our experience of life, and so report +the wants we build upon that experience to the centre of political +decision. The right of the modern man to education became fundamental +to his freedom once the mastery of Nature by science transformed the +sources of power. Deprive a man of knowledge, and the road to ever +greater knowledge, and you will make him, inevitably, the slave of +those more fortunate than himself. But deprivation of knowledge is +not a denial of liberty. It is a denial of the power to use liberty +for great ends. An ignorant man may be free even in his ignorance. In +our world he cannot employ his freedom so as to give him assurance of +happiness. A compulsory training of the mind is still compulsion. It is +a sacrifice of some liberty to a greater freedom when the compulsion +ceases. + +Two other preliminary remarks are important to the thesis I am urging. +Everyone knows the danger to freedom which exists in any community +where there is either special privilege on the one hand or what is +termed the tyranny of the majority on the other. John Stuart Mill +long ago pointed out that in the early history of liberty it was +normally and naturally conceived as protection against the tyranny +of the political rulers. The latter disposed of a power to which its +subjects were compelled to conform; and it became vital in the interest +of freedom to limit that power either by the recognition of special +immunities or by the creation of constitutional guarantees. But even +in the modern state the underlying substance of the argument may not +be neglected. Power as such, when uncontrolled, is always the natural +enemy of freedom. It prevents the exercise of those capacities which +are released for activity by the absence of restraint. Wherever it is +possessed in excess, it tilts the balance of social action in favour +of its possessors. A franchise limited to the owners of property means +legislation in the interests of that class. The exclusion of a race +or creed from a share in citizenship is, invariably, their exclusion +also from the benefits of social action. In any state, therefore, where +liberty is to move to its appointed end, it is important that there +should be equality. + +Now equality is not the same thing as liberty. I do not, indeed, +agree with Lord Acton’s famous dictum that the ‘passion for equality +makes vain the hope of freedom’;[1] liberty and equality are not so +much antithetic as complementary. Men might be broadly equal under +a despotism, and yet unfree. But it is, I think, historically true +that in the absence of certain equalities no freedom can ever hope +for realization. The acute mind of Aristotle long ago saw that the +craving for equality is one of the most profound roots of revolution. +The reason is clear enough. The absence of equality means special +privilege for some and not for others, a special privilege which is +not, so to say, in nature but in a deliberate contrivance of the +social environment. Men like Harrington and Madison and Marx all +insisted, and with truth, that whatever the forms of state, political +power will, in fact, belong to the owners of economic power. We need +not argue that our happiness depends upon the possession of political +power; we can argue that exclusion from it is likely to mean exclusion +from that which largely determines the contours of happiness. And it +follows that the more equal are the social rights of citizens, the more +likely they are to be able to utilize their freedom in realms worthy +of exploration. Certainly the history of the abolition of special +privilege has been, also, the history of the expansion of what in our +inheritance was open to the common man. The more equality there is in a +State, the more use, in general, we can make of our freedom. + +Here, perhaps, it is worth while for a moment to dwell upon the meaning +of equality. Nothing is easier than to make it a notion utterly devoid +of all common sense.[2] It does not mean identity of treatment. The +ultimate fact of the variety of human nature, our differences of both +hereditary capacity and social nurture, these are inescapable. To +treat men so different as Newton and Byron, Cromwell and Rousseau, +in a precisely similar way is patently absurd. But equality does not +mean identity of treatment. It is an insistence that there is no +difference inherent in nature between the claims of men to happiness. +It is therefore an argument that society shall not construct barriers +against those claims which weigh more heavily upon some than upon +others. It shall not exclude men from the legal profession because they +are black or Wesleyans or freemasons. It shall not deny access to the +Courts to men of whose opinions society in general disapproves. The +idea of equality is obviously an idea of levelling. It is an attempt +to give each man as similar a chance as possible to utilize what +powers he may possess. It means that he is to count in the framing of +decisions where these affect him, that whatever legal rights inhere +in any other man as a citizen, shall inhere in him also; that where +differences of treatment are meted out by society to different persons, +those differences shall be capable of explanation in terms of the +common good. It means the recognition of urgent need in all--food, +for instance, and clothing, and shelter--before there is special +recognition of non-urgent claims in any. + +Equality, so regarded, seems to me inescapably connected with freedom. +For equality, so regarded, seems, in the first place, to mean the +organization of opportunities; and, in the second place, it means +that no man’s opportunities are sacrificed, except on terms of social +principle, to the claims of another. In the view I am taking, no child +could be deprived of education that another might receive it; but in a +choice of men say for a post in the Treasury, one might be preferred to +another on the ground of ability or character or training. The idea +of equality, in a word, is such an organization of opportunity that no +man’s personality suffers frustration to the private benefit of others. +He is given his chance that he may use his freedom to experiment with +his powers. He knows that in his effort to attain happiness no barriers +impede him differently from their incidence upon others. He may not +win his objective, but, at least, he cannot claim that society has so +weighted the scale against him as to assure his defeat. + +It is often argued that a theory of liberty which starts from the +effort of the individual to attain happiness must break down because +it fails to remember that society also has rights, and that these are +necessarily superior to those of its component parts. Any organization, +it is said, is more than the units of which it is composed. A +nation-state like America or England is not merely a body of Englishmen +or Americans, but something beyond them. It has a life and a reality, +needs and purposes, which are not exhausted by the sum of the needs +and purposes of its individual members. The liberty of each citizen +is born of, and must be subordinated to, the liberty of that greater +whole from which his whole meaning is derived. For the rights of each +of us depend upon the protective rampart of social organization. It is +because the State enforces our rights as obligations upon others that +we have the opportunity to enjoy them. We are free, it is said, not +for ourselves but for the society which gives us meaning. Where our +interests conflict with the obviously greater interest of the society, +we ourselves must give way. + +It is, I think, true to say that an individual abstracted from society +and regarded as entitled to freedom outside its environment is devoid +of meaning. None of us is Crusoe or St. Simeon Stylites on his pillar. +We are born to live our lives in London or New York, Paris or Berlin +or Rome. Our liberty has to be realized in a welter of competing and +co-operating interests which only achieve rational co-ordination by +something not unlike a miracle. The need to give way to others, to +accept, that is, restraint upon our right to unfettered activity +is inherent in the nature of things. But the surrender we make is a +surrender not for the sake of the society regarded as something other +than its members, but exactly and precisely for men and women whose +totality is conveniently summarized in a collective and abstract +noun. I do not understand how England, for instance, can have an +end or purpose different from, or opposed to, the end or purpose of +its citizens. We strive to do our duty to England for the sake of +Englishmen; a duty to England separate from them, and in which they did +not share, is surely inconceivable. + +Or, at least, would be inconceivable, were it not that perhaps the most +influential theory of the state in our own time has been built upon it. +What is termed the idealist theory of the state is broadly the argument +that individual freedom means obedience to the law of the society to +which I belong. My personality, it is said, is simply an expression of +the organized whole to which I belong. When I say that I am seeking +to realize myself, I mean in fact that I am seeking to be one with +the order of which I am a part. I am not independent of, or isolated +in, that order, but one with it and of it. As it realizes itself, so +am I also realized. The greater and more powerful it becomes, the +greater and more powerful do I become as a consequence. The more +fully, therefore, I serve it, the more fully do I express myself. True +liberty is thus so far from being an absence of restraint that it +is essentially subordination to a system of rational purposes which +receive their highest expression in the activity of the state. To be +one with that activity may well then be regarded as the highest freedom +a citizen can know. + +In the whole history of political philosophy there is nothing more +subtle than the skill with which the idealist school has turned the +flank of the classic antithesis between liberty and authority. From +the Greeks to Rousseau it was always conceived that a man’s freedom is +born of a limitation upon what his rulers may exact from him; since +Rousseau, and, more particularly, since Hegel, it has been urged that +conformity to a code, and even compulsory obedience to it, is the +very essence of freedom. So startling a paradox needs, at the least, +explanation. Liberty, it argues, is not a mere negative thing like +absence of restraint. It is rather a positive self-determination of the +will which, in each of us, seeks the fulfilment of rational purpose +as this lies behind, and gives unified meaning to, the diversified +chaos of purposes in each of us. We desire freedom, that is to say, +in order that we may be ourselves at our best. The right object of +our wills, the thing which, did we know all the facts, we would truly +desire, this is clearly that for which we would seek freedom. This is +our real will, and the highest part of ourselves. This will, moreover, +is the same in each member of society; for, at bottom, the real will +is a common will which finds its highest embodiment in the state. In +this view, therefore, the state is the highest part of ourselves. For +it represents, in its will, what each of us would seek to be if the +temporary, the immediate and the irrational, were stripped from the +objects we desire. Its object is what alone we should aim at were we +free to will only our permanent good. It is, so to say, the long and +permanent end that, in the ultimate analysis, we come individually to +will after private experience of wrong direction and erroneous desire. +The more intimately, therefore, we make our will one with that of the +state, the more completely are we free. The nature of the social bond +makes service to its demands the very essence of freedom. + +Before I seek to analyse this view, I would point out how simply this +argument enables us to resolve the very difficult problem of social +obligation. When I obey the state, I obey the best part of myself. +The more fully I discover its purposes the more fully, also, there is +revealed to me their identity with that at which, in the long view, I +aim. So that when I obey it, I am, in fact, obeying myself; in a real +sense its commands are my own. Its view is built upon the innumerable +intelligences from the interplay of which social organization derives +its ultimate form; obviously such a view is superior in its wisdom +to the result my own petty knowledge can attain. My true liberty is, +therefore, a kind of permanent tutelage to the state, a sacrifice of my +limited purpose to its larger end upon the ground that, as this larger +end is realized, so I, too, am given realization. I may, in fact, be +most fully free when I am most suffused with the sense of compulsion. + +To me, at least, this view contradicts all the major facts of +experience. It seems to me to imply not only a paralysis of the will, +but a denial of that uniqueness of individuality, that sense that each +of us is ultimately different from our fellows, that is the ultimate +fact of human experience. For as I encounter the state, it is for me a +body of men issuing orders. Most of them I can obey either with active +good will or, at least, with indifference. But I may encounter some one +order, a demand, for instance, for military service, a compulsion to +abandon my religious faith, which seems to me in direct contradiction +to the whole scheme of values I have found in life. How I can be the +more free by subordinating my judgment of right to one which directly +changes that judgment to its opposite, I cannot understand. If the +individual is not to find the source of his decisions in the contact +between the outer world and himself, in the experience, that is, which +is the one unique thing that separates him from the rest of society, he +ceases to have meaning as an individual in any sense that is creative. +For the individual is real to himself not by reason of the contacts +he shares with others, but because he reaches those contacts through +a channel which he alone can know. His true self is the self that +is isolated from his fellows and contributes the fruit of isolated +meditation to the common good, which, collectively, they seek to bring +into being. + +A true theory of liberty, I urge, is built upon a denial of each of +the assumptions of idealism. My true self is not a selected system +of rational purposes identical with those sought by every member of +society. We cannot split up the wholeness of personality in this way. +My true self is all that I am and do. It is the total impression +produced by the bewildering variety of my acts, good and bad and +indifferent. All of them go to the formation of my view of the +universe; all of them are my expression of my striving to fulfil my +personality. Each, while it is, is real, and each, as real, must give +way only in terms of a judgment I make, not of one made for me by some +other will, if I am to remain a purposive human being serving myself as +an end. This attempt, in a word, at the extraction of a partial self +from the whole of my being as alone truly myself not only denies that +my experience is real, but, also, makes me merely an instrument to the +purpose of others. Whatever that condition is, surely it cannot be +recognized as freedom. + +But we can go further than this. I see no reason to suppose that this +assumed real will is identical in every member of society. The ultimate +and inescapable fact in politics is the final variety of human wills. +There is no continuum which makes all of them one. Experience suggests +common objects of desire, but each will that wills these common +objects is a different will in every sense not purely metaphorical. We +all have a will to international peace. But the unity these make is not +in the will but in the fusion of separate wills to the attainment of a +common purpose. And we must remember that in every society the objects +of wills cannot, in some mystic fashion, be fused into a higher unity +somehow compounded of them all. I see no meaning, for instance, in the +statement that the antithetic purposes of Jesuits and Freemasons are +somehow transcended in a higher purpose which resumes them both; that +is to say that a Jesuit or a Freemason is most truly himself when he +ceases to be himself, which, frankly, seems to me nonsense. A member of +the Praesidium of the Third International, whose will aims supremely +at the overthrow of capitalism, is not somehow at one with the will +of the President of the British Federation of Industries to whom all +the purposes of the Third International are anathema. Both, doubtless, +will the good; but the point is that each wills the good as he sees +it, and each would regard the fulfilment of the other’s ideal of good +as a definite destruction of his own. There is, therefore, no single +and common will in society, unless we mean thereby the vague concept, +entirely useless for political philosophy, that men desire the good. +Each of us desires the good as he sees it; and each of us sees a good +derived from an individual and separate experience into which no other +person can fully enter. Our connection with others is, at the best, +partial and interstitial. Our pooling of experiences to make a common +purpose somewhere is in no case other than fragmentary. We remain +ourselves even when we join with others to attain some common object +of desire. The ultimate isolation of the individual personality is the +basis from which any adequate theory of politics must start. + +I reject, therefore, the idea of a real will, and, still more, the +idea that there is a common will in society. It is a logical inference +therefrom that I should reject also the doctrine that all state-action +is, at bottom, the exercise of the real will of society. For, first +of all, I see no reason to suppose that social life is ultimately the +product of a single and rational mind organizing its activities in +terms of a logical process. To speak of the “mind of society”, seems to +me merely a metaphorical way of describing a course of action which is +made valid by translation into fact. There are no governing principles +in social life deliberately emerging from the interplay of its myriad +constituent parts. Governing principles emerge; but they emerge through +the wills of individual minds. And the state is magnified to excess +when it is regarded as embodying a unified will. The state is a complex +of rulers and subjects territorially organized and seeking, by the +conference of power upon those rulers, effective co-ordination of +social activities. They exercise the right to use force, if necessary, +to that end. But no one, I think, can examine the course of history and +say that the experience of any state indicates a permanent embodiment +of the highest good we know in the purpose of the state. Our rulers, +doubtless, aim at the good as they see it. Yet what they see as good +may not be so recognizable to us, and may well provoke in us the sense +that life would not be worth living if their view was to prevail. The +unity of the state, in a word, is not inherently there. It is made by +civic acceptance of what its rulers propose. It is not necessarily +good because it is accepted; it is not necessarily right because it +is proposed. Obedience ought always to be a function of the substance +contained in the rules made by government; it is a permanent essay in +the conditional mood.[3] + +Here, of course, the idealist retorts that he is dealing not with the +states of history, but with the state as such; he is concerned with +the “pure” instance and not with deviations from the ideal.[4] But it +is with actual states that we have to deal in everyday life as we know +it, with states the policy of which is directed by men who are human +like ourselves. The policy they announce must, obviously, be subject +to our scrutiny; and the result of our judgment is necessarily made +out of an experience not identical with, even though it be similar to, +theirs. I cannot believe that a theory fits the facts of history which +assumes that this policy is going to be right, whatever it is; and +that freedom will be found only in acceptance of it. I do not believe +that the Huguenot of 1685 was made the more free by accepting, against +his conscience, the Revocation; nor do I believe that Luther would +have been more free had he accepted the decrees of Rome and abandoned +his protest. Man is a one among many obstinately refusing reduction +to unity. His separateness, his isolation, are indefeasible; indeed, +they are so ultimate that they are the basis out of which his civic +obligations are builded. He cannot abandon the consequences of his +isolation which are, broadly speaking, that his experience is private +and the will built out of that experience personal to himself. If he +surrenders it to others, he surrenders his personality. If his will is +set by the will of others, he ceases to be master of himself. I cannot +believe that a man no longer master of himself is in any meaning sense +free. + + +II + +If we reject a view which, like that just considered, seeks to dissolve +the reality of the individual into the society of which he is a part, +what are we left with as the pattern within which a man seeks freedom? +Let us try to draw a picture of the place of man in a community like +our own. He finds himself involved in a complex of relationships out +of which he must form such a pattern of conduct as will give him +happiness. There are his family, his friends, the church to which he +may belong, his voluntary association, trade union, or employers’ +association or whatever it may be, and there is the state. All of +these, save the state, he may in greater or less degree avoid. A man +may cut himself off from family or friends; he may refuse membership of +a church or vocational body; he cannot refuse membership of the state. +Somewhere or other, he encounters it as a body of persons issuing +orders, and he is involved in the problem of deciding whether or no he +will obey those orders. Every order issued is, in a final analysis, +issued by a person or persons to another person or persons. When we +say that, in such a complex of relationships as this, that a man is +free, what do we mean? We know that if his Church issues an order to +him of which he disapproves, he can leave his church; so, too, with all +other bodies save the state. The latter can, if he seeks evasion of its +commands, use compulsion to secure obedience to its orders. It makes, +we say, the law, and a member of the state is legally compelled to obey +the law. + +But he is not free merely because he obeys the law. His freedom, in +relation to the law, depends on the effect of any particular order +upon his experience. He is seeking happiness; some order seems to him +a wanton invasion of that happiness. He may be right or wrong in so +thinking; the point of fact is that he has no alternative but to go by +his own moral certainties. Now freedom exists in a state where a man +knows that the decisions made by the ultimate authority do not invade +his personality. The conditions of freedom are then those which assure +the absence of such invasion. The citizen who asks for freedom is +entitled to the conditions which, collectively, are the guarantees that +he will be able to go on the road to his happiness, as he conceives it, +unhindered. Neither conditions nor guarantees will ever be perfect; nor +will they ever cover all upon which happiness depends. The state, for +instance, may say that I may marry the woman I love; it cannot say that +she will marry me if I so desire. The freedom it secures to me is the +absence of a barrier in the way of marriage if I can win her consent. + +From this angle, liberty may appropriately be resolved into a system +of liberties. There are realms of conduct within which, to be free, +I must be permitted to act as I please; to be denied self-expression +there, is to be denied freedom. What we need to know is, I suggest, +first what those realms of conduct are, and, second, what my duty as a +citizen is when I am, in any one of them, prohibited from acting as I +please. The difficulty here, of course, it is impossible to exaggerate. +It is the problem of knowing when a man ought deliberately to make up +his mind to break the law or to refuse obedience to it. In the idealist +theory, this problem does not arise; it is answered _a priori_ by the +definition of freedom as obedience to the law. But because we have +rejected this view, we have to admit that there will be occasional +disobedience, at the least, and that this may be justified. We have to +discover the principles of its justification. + +Liberty may be resolved into a system of liberties; and from this angle +it may be said that it is the purpose of social organization to see to +it that this system is adequately safeguarded. How can the state, which +charges itself with the function of supreme co-ordination, properly +fulfil this task? How can it guarantee to me such an environment to my +activity that I do not suffer frustration in my search for happiness? + +There have been many answers to this question, some of them of the +highest interest and importance. One or two I wish to consider partly +because of their significance in themselves, and partly because, +from that consideration, I wish to make the inference that no merely +mechanical arrangements will ever secure freedom in permanence to the +citizens of a state. While there are certain constitutional forms +which are, as I think, essential to freedom, their mere presence as +forms will not, of themselves, suffice to make men free. I shall seek, +further, to draw the conclusion that, whatever the forms of social +organization, liberty is essentially an expression of an impalpable +atmosphere among men. It is a sense that in the things we deem +significant there is the opportunity of continuous initiative, the +knowledge that we can, so to speak, experiment with ourselves, think +differently or act differently, from our neighbours without danger to +our happiness being involved therein. We are not free, that is, unless +we can form our plan of conduct to suit our own character without +social penalties. Freedom is in an important degree a matter of law; +but in a degree not less important it is a matter, also, of the _mores_ +of the society outside the sphere within which law can operate. + +You will observe that I am still, from the angle of political +organization, thinking of liberty as a safeguard of the individual +against those who rule him. I do so for the best of reasons. Whoever +exerts power in a community is tempted to the abuse of power. Even in +a democracy, we must have ways and means of protecting the minority +against a majority which seeks to invade its freedom. Mankind has +suffered much from the assumption that, once the people had become +master in its own house, there was no limit to its power. You have +only to remember the history of racial minorities like the negroes, +of religious or national minorities like Jews and Czechs, to realize +that democracy, of itself, is no guarantee of freedom. This raises +the larger question of whether freedom in the modern state can ever +be satisfactorily secured by internal sanctions, and whether, in +fact, it is ever durably possible save in the terms of a strong and +stable international organization. For, clearly, we must not think of +freedom as involving only an individual set over against the community; +it involves also the freedom of groups, racial, ecclesiastical, +vocational, set over against the community and the state; it involves +also the relation of states to one another, as, for instance, in the +problem of annexation. No Englishman would think himself free if his +domestic life were defined for him by another state; and no German but +has had a bitter sense of unfreedom during the foreign occupation of +the Rhineland. Our generation, at least, is unlikely to under-estimate +the problem of what limits may be set to the demand for freedom by a +national group. + + +III + +Everyone who considers the relation of liberty to the institutions of +a state will, I think, find it difficult to resist the conclusion that +without democracy there cannot be liberty. That is not an over-popular +thesis in our time. A reaction against democratic ideals is the +fashion, and the dictatorships which proliferate over half Europe +are earnest in maintaining their obsolescence. Yet consider, for a +moment, what democracy implies. It involves a frame of government in +which, first, men are given the chance of making the government under +which they live, in which, also, the laws that government promulgates +are binding equally upon all. I do not think the average man can be +made happy merely by living in a democracy: I do not see how he can +avoid a sense of continuous frustration unless he does. For if he does +not share in making the government, if he cannot, where his fellows +so choose, be himself made one of the rulers of the state, he is +excluded from that which secures him the certainty that his experience +counts. To read the history of England before the enfranchisement of +the wage-earner is to realize that however small is the value of the +franchise it still assures the attention of government to grievance. +The right, therefore, to the franchise is essential to liberty; and +a citizen excluded from it is unfree. Unfree for the simple reason +that the rulers of the state will not regard his will as entitled to +consideration in the making of policy. They will do things for him, but +not those things he himself regards as urgent; as Parliament a hundred +years ago met the grim problem of urban want by building more churches +to the glory of the Lord. Whatever is to be said against the democratic +form of state, it seems to me unquestionable that it has forced the +needs of humble men on the attention of government in a way impossible +under any other form. + +To be free a people must be able to choose its rulers at stated +intervals simply because there is no other way in which their wants, as +they experience those wants, will receive attention. It is fundamental +to the conference of power that it should never be permanent. If it +is so, it ceases to give attention to the purposes for which it is +conferred and thinks only of the well-being of those who can exercise +it. That has been, notably, the history of monarchy and aristocracy, +and in general, of the practice of colonial dominion. Power that +is unaccountable makes instruments of men who should be ends in +themselves. Responsible government in a democracy lives always in the +shadow of coming defeat; and this makes it eager to satisfy those with +whose destinies it is charged. + +That is a general principle which, stated as baldly as this, does not +adequately illustrate the substance it implies. The history of the +struggle for popular freedom has given us knowledge of certain rules +in the organization of a state the presence of which is fundamental +to freedom. It can, I think, be shown that no citizen is secure in +liberty unless certain rights are guaranteed to him, rights which the +government of the state cannot hope to overthrow; and unless, to secure +the maintenance of those rights, there is a separation of the judicial +from the executive power. + +The citizens of a state choose men to make the laws under which they +are to live. It is urgent that they should be binding upon all without +fear or favour; that I, for instance, should be able to live secure +in the knowledge that they will not apply to me differently from +their incidence upon others. Clearly enough, in the modern state, the +application of law to life demands a vast body of civil servants to +administer it. Not the least important problem of our time is that +which arises when the legality of their administration is in question. +In Anglo-Saxon communities it has been regarded as elementary that +the interpretation of law should be entrusted to an independent body +of officials--the judges--who can arbitrate impartially between +government and citizens. That view I take to be of the first importance +to freedom; and its acceptance involves considerations which we must +examine in some detail. + +The business of a judiciary, broadly speaking, is the impartial +interpretation of the law as between government and citizen, or between +classes of citizens who dispute with one another. The government, for +instance, charges a man with treason; obviously he is deprived of +something essential to his freedom if the law is strained so as to make +of treason something it in fact is not in order to cover the acts which +the government seeks to have accepted as treason. Here, obviously, the +judge must be assured that his independence may be maintained with +safety to himself. He must not suffer in his person or position because +of the view he takes. It must not be within the power either of the +government or other persons to deprive him of his authority because, as +best he may, he applies the law. This, as I think, makes it essential +that all judicial appointments should be held during good behaviour. +There may be an age-limit of service, of course; but, this apart, +nothing should permit the removal of a judge from the bench except +corruption or physical unfitness. I do not, therefore, believe that a +judicial system founded upon popular election is a satisfactory way of +choosing judges, the more so if submission to re-election is involved; +and the system, abandoned in England in 1701, of making judicial +appointment dependent upon the pleasure of government is equally +indefensible. Once a man has been appointed to judicial office nothing +must stand in the way of his complete independence of mind. Election, +re-election, a power in the government to dismiss, are all of them +incompatible with the function the judge is to perform. They will not, +as a general rule, either give us the men we want, or enable us to keep +them when we have found them. + +But we must, I think, go further than this. Judicial independence is +not merely a matter of mechanical technique; it is also psychological +in character. The judge whose promotion is dependent upon the will of +the executive, even more, the judge who may look to a political career +as a source of future distinction, neither of these is adequately +protected in that independence of mind which is the pivot of his +function. No less a person than Mr Chief Justice Taft has told us +that he appointed a predecessor to that eminent position at least +partly because he approved of one of his decisions.[5] No one could, +I think, have confidence in the Bench if it were known that decisions +pleasing to a given political party might lead either to promotion or +to choice as either a presidential candidate or as Lord Chancellor. +It seems to me, therefore, that we must so organize the method of +judicial promotion as to prevent the executive from choosing men of its +own outlook, and, further, see to it that appointment to the Bench is +definitely taken as the end of a political career. These are problems +of detailed technique into which I cannot now enter;[6] here I am only +concerned to point out that the problem of independence which they +raise is one that it is necessary to meet with frankness. + +But the judge’s authority as a safeguard of our freedom is in the +modern state threatened in another way. Modern legislation is so +huge both in volume and extent that the average assembly has neither +time nor energy to scrutinize its details. The modern habit is, +therefore, to pass Acts which confer a general power, and to leave the +filling in of details to the discretion of the department concerned. +To this, I think, no one can really take exception. The state must +do its work; and it must develop the agencies necessary to that end. +But I think we have grave reason for fear when the growth of this +delegated legislative authority is accompanied with, or followed by, +the conference of powers upon government departments themselves to +determine the question of whether the powers they take are legal or +no. I regard the growth of delegated legislation as both necessary and +desirable; but if it is not gravely to impair our freedom, it should, I +think, be developed only under the amplest safeguards. + +Decisions, for instance, like that on the _Fu Toy_ case[7] in the +United States, and in _Arlidge_ v. _Local Government Board_[8] in +England, are clearly a real menace to the liberty of the subject. They +suggest a type of executive justice for which the methods of the Star +Chamber are the nearest analogy. No body of civil servants, however +liberal-minded they may be, ought to be free both to make the law and +to devise the procedure by which its legality may be tested; and that, +be it remembered, without a power of appeal from their decision. It +may be taken for granted that the modern state needs an administrative +law; in matters, for instance, like rate-fixing in public utilities, +in workmen’s compensation cases, in matters concerning public health, +the views of a body of experts in a public department are generally +at least as valid as that of the judicial body. But one wants to be +certain that in arriving at his decision the expert has been compelled +to take account of all the relevant evidence; that the parties to his +decision have had their day in court. This seems to me to involve the +organization of a procedure for all administrative tribunals which +takes account of the lessons we have learned both from the procedure +of ordinary courts and from the history of the law of evidence; and it +involves an appeal from administrative tribunals to the ordinary courts +on all questions where denial of proper procedure is held to involve a +denial of proper consideration. Something of this, if I understand the +matter aright, has been granted to the American citizen by the Supreme +Court in _McCall_ &c. v. _New York_;[9] and I should feel happier about +the future of administrative law if I were certain that the principles +of that decision applied to all governmental activities of the kind. + +Another safeguard is not less essential. We agree, for the most part, +in ordinary legal matters that the opinion of a single judge, even +when reinforced by the verdict of a jury, ought not to be final in +either criminal or civil cases. I should like to see that agreement +extended to the sphere of administrative law. Where, that is to say, +a departmental tribunal has rendered its decision I should like an +appeal to lie to a higher administrative tribunal composed not only of +officials, but, also, of laymen of experience in the matters involved +who could be trusted to bring an independent mind to the settlement +of the matter in dispute. English experience of tribunals like the +civil service division of the Industrial Court, and the Commissioners +of Income Tax, convinces me that the common sense of a good lay mind +is, in this realm, an immense safeguard against departmental error. And +we must remember that, however great be the good will of the public +services, what, to them, may seem a simple matter of administrative +routine, may be to the citizens involved a denial of the very substance +of freedom. Certainly a case like _ex parte O’Brien_[10] makes one +see how real would be the threat to public liberty if departmental +legislation grew without proper judicial scrutiny at every stage of its +development. + +The problem, however, does not merely end here. There are two other +sides of administrative action in which the uncontrolled power of the +state is an implicit threat to civic freedom. Of the first, I would +say here only a word, since I have treated it fully elsewhere.[11] The +modern state is a sovereign state and, as such, there are large realms +of its conduct where wrong on its part cannot imply the invocation by +the citizen of penalty. The right to sue the state in tort seems to me +quite fundamental to freedom. The modern state is in essence a public +service corporation. Like any other body, it acts through servants who +take decisions in its name. I can see no reason in the world why, like +any other body serving the public, it should not be responsible for +the torts of its agents. If I am run over by the negligent driver of a +railway truck, I can secure damages: I do not see why I am not equally +entitled to damages if the truck is the property of, and is driven for, +the Postmaster-General of His Majesty.[12] + +But, still in the context of administration, the needs of liberty +go yet further. There has accreted today about the departments of +state a type of discretionary power which seems to me full of danger +unless it is exercised under proper safeguards. Examples of it +are the power of the Postmaster-General in the United States over +the mails and of the Home Secretary in England over requests from +aliens for naturalization. An alien applies to the Home Secretary +for naturalization. He answers innumerable questions, and presents +certificates of good character from citizens who testify on oath to his +standing. He has resided in the country for at least five years and he +will not, of course, normally venture to apply unless his record is +adequate. A request is published in the press for any information about +him and, after a due interval, the Home Secretary makes a decision +about his case. He has, of course, pursued his own inquiries, and he +has, presumably, received information about the applicant upon which +his action is based. Now the point that disturbs me is the fact that +where a certificate of naturalization is refused, the grounds for +rejection are never, even privately to the applicant, made known. He +is refused privileges which may be vital to him and his family in +the background of accusations which may, doubtless, be true, but may +also be completely without foundation and capable, were opportunity +afforded, of being immediately and decisively refuted. And so great is +the discretionary power of the Minister that he may even substitute his +own will for that of the legislature: the Act, for instance, demands a +five-year period of residence. The late Home Secretary, Lord Brentford, +announced that while he was in office he would grant no certificate +unless the applicant had resided in England continuously for a period +of thirteen years. It seems to me that this power to deny admission +to citizenship, as it is exercised, is a complete denial of natural +justice. No person ought to be condemned by accusations he is not given +the opportunity to refute. Anyone who wishes to give testimony in a +case of this kind ought surely to prove his _bona fides_ by submitting +to cross-examination by the applicant or his representative. I should +like, therefore, to see the possibility of an appeal from the decision +of the Home Secretary to a judge in chambers where the latter would, on +a case stated by the Department, hear such evidence as the applicant +chose to bring for its refutation and then only make a final decision. +Anything less than this seems to me a wanton abuse of freedom; and, +_mutatis mutandis_, this type of safeguard seems to me urgent wherever +a Minister is given a discretionary power which affects the liberty of +the subject. + +I accept, therefore, the traditional notion that the separation of +the judicial from the executive power, the right of the former to +determine the legality of executive decision, is the basis of freedom. +I do not, however, believe that the separation of the executive from +the legislature is either necessary or desirable. The origin of +the idea, as you know, is in the historic misinterpretation of the +British Constitution by Montesquieu;[13] and this, in its turn, was +due to his misapplication of certain classic dicta of Locke.[14] The +fact is that a separation in this realm results in a complete and +undesirable erosion of responsibility. The British system, in which the +executive, as a committee of the legislative, formulates its plans for +acceptance or rejection, has, I think, the clear advantage of showing +the electorate exactly where responsibility for action must lie. Where +mistakes are made, where there is corruption, or dishonesty, or abuse, +it can be brought home forthwith to its authors. In the American +system, that is not the case. The President is neither the master nor +the servant of the legislature. The latter can make its own schemes; +where its views, more, where its party complexion, are different from +his, there is a constant tendency to paralysis of administration. Each +can blame the other for failure. No clear policy emerges upon which +the electorate can form a straightforward judgment. Independence makes +for antagonism and antagonism, in its turn, makes for confusion. Such +a separation means, almost invariably, the construction of a separate +quasi-executive in the legislature, which has an interest of its own +distinct from, and often hostile to, that of the President.[15] I can +see no necessary safeguard of liberty in this. On the contrary, the +British system, where the executive may be at any moment destroyed by +the legislature as a penalty for error or wrong, where, also, there +lies always the prospect of an immediate and direct appeal to the +people as the ultimate and only arbiter of difference, seems to me far +more satisfactory. + + +IV + +Another institutional mechanism for the safeguarding of freedom is that +of a Bill of Rights. Certain principles, freedom of speech, protection +from arbitrary arrest, and the like, are regarded as especially sacred. +They are enshrined in a document which cannot, constitutionally, be +invaded either by the legislature or the executive, save by a special +procedure to which access is difficult. The first Amendment to the +American Constitution, for example, lays it down that Congress shall +pass no law abridging freedom of speech; and any Act of Congress which +touches upon the matter can be challenged for unconstitutionality +before the Supreme Court. The Amendment, moreover, cannot be attacked +save by the usual process of constitutional change in America; and +that means that, except in the event of an American Revolution, it is +unlikely ever to be directly attacked at all. + +My own years of residence in the United States have convinced me that +there is a real value in Bills of Rights which it is both easy, and +mistaken, to under-estimate. Granted that the people are educated to +the appreciation of their purpose, they serve to draw attention, as +attention needs to be drawn, to the fact that vigilance is essential in +the realm of what Cromwell called fundamentals. Bills of Rights are, +quite undoubtedly, a check upon possible excess in the government of +the day. They warn us that certain popular powers have had to be fought +for, and may have to be fought for again. The solemnity they embody +serves to set the people on their guard. It acts as a rallying-point in +the state for all who care deeply for the ideals of freedom. I believe, +for instance, that the existence of the First Amendment has drawn +innumerable American citizens to defend freedom of speech who have no +atom of sympathy with the purposes for which it is used. A Bill of +Rights, so to say, canonizes the safeguards of freedom; and, thereby, +it persuades men to worship at the altar who might not otherwise note +its existence. + +All this, I think, is true; but it does not for a moment imply that +a Bill of Rights is an automatic guarantee of liberty. For the +relationship of legislation to its substance has to be measured by the +judiciary. Its members, after all, are human beings, likely, as the +rest of us, to be swept off their feet by gusts of popular passion. +The first Amendment to the American Constitution guarantees freedom of +speech and peaceable assembly; the fourth Amendment legally secures to +the citizen that his house shall not be searched except upon a warrant +of probable cause; the eighth Amendment legally secures him against +excessive bail. Yet you will remember how, in one hysterical week in +1919, the action of the executive power rendered all these amendments +worthless;[16] and you will not forget that the fifteenth Amendment, +which sought political freedom for the coloured citizens of the South, +has never been effectively applied either by the executive or by the +Courts. + +The fact is that any Bill of Rights depends for its efficacy on the +determination of the people that it shall be maintained. It is just +as strong, and no more, than the popular will to freedom. No one now +doubts that the Espionage Acts were strained so as to destroy almost +all that the first Amendment was intended to cover; that most of the +charges preferred under it were, on their face, ludicrous. Yet you +will remember that, in _Abrams_ v. _United States_,[17] two judges +stood alone in their insistence that the first Amendment really meant +something; the judgment of the others was caught in the meshes of war +hysteria. No principle is better established than the right of the +citizen, under proper circumstances, to a writ of _habeas corpus_; +that is, perhaps, the ark of the covenant in the Anglo-American +conception of freedom. But who can ever forget the noble and pathetic +words of Chief Justice Taney, in _ex parte Merryman_,[18] where he +insists that the applicant is entitled to the writ and that, in view +of President Lincoln’s suspension of it--a suspension entirely illegal +in character--he could not secure to Mr Merryman his due rights? And +let us remember, also, that even where the judge is prepared to do his +duty, he cannot, in a period of excitement, count upon public opinion. +Nothing is clearer than the fact that those who hanged Mr Gordon during +the Jamaica riots were guilty of murder. The opinion of Chief Justice +Cockburn could not have made the issue more clear; it is a landmark in +the judicial history of freedom. Yet the jury at once, in its despite, +acquitted the accused. There have been, further, many occasions when +breaches of fundamental principles of freedom, breaches which, on +any showing, have been quite indefensible, have been followed at +once by Acts of Indemnity. I know only of one case in England in the +last hundred years in which such an Act has been refused. Yet it +is, I think, obvious that unless such breaches are definitely and +deliberately punished, they will always occur on critical occasions. +At such times, it is impossible to trust those who are charged with +the exercise of power; and only the knowledge that swift and certain +punishment will follow its abuse will make our rulers attentive to the +needs of freedom. + +I speak the language of severity; and I am anxious that you should +not think that the language of severity is that of the extremist. +I invite you, as the proof of what I say, to read, in the light of +cold reason a decade after the close of the war, the history of the +tribunals in England which were charged with examining conscientious +objectors to military service and on the military authorities to whom +some of those objectors were handed over.[19] No one can go through +the record without the sense that some of the tribunals deliberately +evaded the purposes of the exemption clause; and it is clear that in +the administration of punishment for refusal to obey orders, there was +wanton cruelty, a deliberate pleasure in the infliction of pain, for +which no words can be too strong. Nor is that all. The record shows +occasions when Ministers of the Crown, when responding to questions in +the House of Commons, used evasions of a kind which showed a complete +contempt of truth;[20] and they were supported in their attitude by +the majority of the members there. I note, also, at least one occasion +when a number of conscientious objectors were taken from England to +France for the purpose of execution by the military authorities; and it +was only the accident that Professor Gilbert Murray was able to appeal +on their behalf to the Prime Minister, which prevented the sentence +from being carried out.[21] These are worse than the methods of the +Inquisition; for, at least, the members of that tribunal believed that +they were rescuing their victims from eternal damnation. Those of whom +I speak had no excuse save ignorant prejudice and the blindness of +passion. + +You will see, therefore, why I cannot believe that constitutional +expedients alone, however substantial, will prevent the invasion of +liberty. They will work just so long as people are determined they +shall work, and no longer. They are valuable because, since they have +been consecrated by tradition, their invasion tends to awaken, at +least in some of us, a prejudice to which we have become habituated. +But to keep them active and alive, requires a deliberate and purposive +effort it is by no means easy to make when the result of doing so +conflicts with some other object keenly desired. That is, I think, +capable of a simple demonstration. No class of men is so carefully +trained as the judiciary to the habit of a balanced mind. Yet if you +examine the observations of judges in cases where their passions are +deeply involved you will note how great is the effort they have to +make to show tolerance to antagonistic views. Nor do they always +succeed. In most of the classic English blasphemy cases, for example, +the judge has too often been, either consciously or unconsciously, an +additional counsel for the prosecution.[22] In many of the American +Espionage Acts cases what chiefly emerges from the summing up of the +judge is a desire, at all costs, to see that the prisoner does not +secure an acquittal.[23] Recent injunction cases in America show a +desire, no doubt unconscious, on the part of the Court, to lend aid and +countenance to a social philosophy of which it happens to approve. + +I conclude, therefore, that in general we shall not allow, as a +society, the mechanisms of the state to serve the cause of freedom +unless we approve the objects at which freedom aims. In a time +of crisis, particularly, when the things we hold most dear are +threatened, we shall find the desire to throw overboard the habits of +tolerance, almost irresistible. For those habits are not in Nature, +which teaches us that opinions we deem evil are fraught with death. +They come from our social heritage, and are part of a process the value +of which we must relearn continuously if we are to preserve it. That is +the meaning of the famous maxim that eternal vigilance is the price of +liberty. It is why, also, it becomes necessary in each age to restate +the case for freedom, if it is to be maintained. + + +V + +There is one other general part of this political aspect of liberty +that I wish to consider before I turn to a different portion of my +theme. I have argued that resistance to the encroachments of power is +essential to freedom because it is the habit of power continuously, +if it can, to enlarge the boundaries of its authority. Is there any +specific rule by which men can be trained to such resistance? Is there, +that is, a way in which the average citizen of the modern state can be +persuaded that it is in his interest to be vigilant against those who +would invade his rights? Can it, further, be shown that such a temper +in the citizen is likely, as it grows, to confer benefit upon the +community as a whole? + +Broadly speaking, I think the answer to these questions is in the +affirmative. I hazard the generalization that the more widespread +the distribution of power in the state, the more decentralized its +character, the more likely men are to be zealous for freedom. That is, +of course, a large statement to make. It is the thesis that, in terms +of historic experience, good government is always, in the end, both +less valuable and less efficient than self-government. I mean that, in +general, rules imposed upon a society from above for its benefit are +less effective to the end that they seek than rules which have grown +naturally from below. I believe that to be true both of the individual +and the group in society. Its full realization is, of course, an +impossibility since it would make the uniformities we need in social +life unattainable. But the greater the degree in which we can realize +it, the better for the community to which we belong. + +I do not mean to imply that there is any rigid principle which enables +us to mark off the lines of demarcation between what is individual and +what is social, between what belongs to the group and what belongs +to the state, between the sphere of central, and the sphere of local +government. The only possible approach to that problem is a pragmatic +one, as anyone can see who tries to make common sense out of John +Stuart Mill’s famous attempt, with its list of exceptions[24] by which +he reduced it to something like absurdity. Most of us, I think, could +draw up lists of governmental subjects in which central and local +topics could be demarcated without undue disagreement. We should fairly +universally say that foreign policy and defence, fiscal technique and +commercial regulation were naturally within the sphere of the central, +and playing fields, were within the sphere of the local, authority. We +should agree that crime is a matter for the state, and sin a matter for +the churches. We should admit that there must be uniform regulations +for marriage and divorce, but that individuals only could make up their +minds when, within the regulations, either to marry or divorce. + +This, I think, is pretty straightforward. The points I wish to +emphasize are different. They are, first, that in the making of public +decisions, it is desirable that as many persons as possible who are +affected by the result should share in reaching it; and, secondly, +that whenever the decision to make some rule of conduct a matter of +governmental regulation arouses widespread and ardent dissent, the +probability is that the case against the decision is stronger than the +case in its favour. + +My first point I may perhaps best make by the statement that all +creative authority is essentially federal in character. The purpose for +which authority is exercised is the maximum satisfaction of desire. To +achieve that end, it is in the long run vital to take account of the +wills of those who will be affected by the decision. For, otherwise, +their desires are unexplored, and there is substituted for the full +experience that should be available, the partial experience, perhaps +suffused with a sinister interest, which is able to influence the +legal source of decision. Maximum satisfaction, in other words, is a +function of maximum consultation; and the greater the degree in which +the citizen shares in making the rules under which he lives, the more +likely is his allegiance to those rules to be free and unfettered. Nor +is this all. The process of being consulted gives him a sense of being +significant in the state. It makes him feel that he is more than the +mete recipient of orders. He realizes that the state exists for his +ends and not for its own. He comes to see that his needs will be met +only as he contributes his instructed judgment to the experience out +of which decisions are compounded. He gains the expectation of being +consulted, the sense that he must form an opinion on public affairs. +He learns to dislike orders which are issued without regard being paid +to his will. He comes to have a sense of frustration when decisions are +made arbitrarily, and without an attempt to build them from the consent +of those affected. He learns vigilance about the ways of power. Those +who are trained to that vigilance become the conscious guardians of +liberty. + +For they will protest against what they regard as the invasion of +their rights, and tribute will have to be paid to their protest. In +any community, fortunately for ourselves, power is always upon the +defensive; and when men are vigilant to expose its encroachments it +is urgent to seek their good opinion. Those active-minded enough to +fight for their rights will, doubtless, be always in a minority; but +they prick the indifferent multitude into thought and they thus act as +the gadflies of liberty. The handful of American lawyers who protested +against the methods of the Department of Justice in 1920 forced its +officials to a change of their ways. The little group of men who, in +season and out of season, have protested that the white man’s burden +ought not, in justice, to be borne by the black, have the Mandates’ +system of the League of Nations to their credit: what E. D. Morel did +for the Congo, what H. W. Nevinson did for Portuguese Angola, these +are lessons in the service of citizenship to liberty. And it is the +peculiar value of this habit of mind that it grows by what it feeds on. +To accustom the average man to regard himself as a person who must be +consulted is, in the long run, to assure him, through consultation, of +satisfaction. For the holders of power are always desirous of finding +the convenient routine; and if they are driven by pressure to give the +people freedom, they will discover that this is the object they have +set before themselves. + +Into the institutional pattern which such a federalization of +authority requires I cannot here enter.[25] It must suffice to say +that it makes totally inadequate the traditional forms even of the +democratic state. For the notion that, when the citizen has chosen his +representatives for Parliament or his local authority, he can sit back +in the comfortable knowledge that his wants are known, his interests +safeguarded, has not one jot of evidence to support it. We need, of a +certainty, a much more complex scheme. We have not only to provide for +more adequate relationships between Parliament and the administrative +process; we have also to integrate the latter with the public it serves +on a much ampler scale than any we have hitherto imagined. I have +elsewhere tried to show how vital in this context is the device of the +advisory committee. Its value both as a check upon bureaucracy, and +as a means of making decision genuinely representative in character, +becomes the more clear the wider our experience of its functioning. + +But even this is not enough. There will never be liberty in any state +where there is an excessive concentration of power at the centre. The +need for a wide conference of authority away from that centre becomes +more obvious with the growth of our experience. If the decisions to +be made are to embody the needs of those affected by them, the latter +must have major responsibility for their making. All of our problems +are not central problems; and to leave to the central government the +decision of questions which affect only a portion of the community is +to destroy in that portion the sense of responsibility and the habit of +inventiveness. The inhabitants of any given area have a consciousness +of common purposes, a sense of the needs of their neighbourhood, +which only they can fully know. They find that the power to satisfy +them of themselves gives to them a quality of vigour far greater in +the happiness it produces than would be the case if satisfaction were +always provided by, or controlled from, without. For administration +from without always lacks the vitalizing ability to be responsive to +local opinion; it misses shades and expressions of thought and want +which are urgent to successful government. It lacks the genius of +place. It does not elicit creative support from those over whom it +rules. It makes for mechanical uniformity, an effort to apply similar +rules to unsimilar things. It is too distant from the thing to be done +to awaken interest from those concerned in the process of doing it. +Centralized government in local matters may be more efficient than a +decentralized system; but that superior efficiency will never, as Mill +long ago pointed out, compensate for an inferior interest in the result. + +I believe, therefore, that, with all its difficulties and dangers, the +area of local government should be as little circumscribed as possible. +The German system, of laying down what a local authority may not do, +and leaving it free to experiment outside that realm of prohibition, +seems to me superior both in principle and result to its Anglo-American +antithesis. Thereby we gain not only the knowledge which comes +from varied social experiment, but the freedom born of citizenship +trained in the widest degree to think for itself and to solve its own +problems. Most imposed solutions of a uniform character only succeed +where their material is genuinely uniform. That is rarely the case +in these matters. And even the impatient reformer ought sometimes to +think whether, say, forcing a child-labour law on Georgia by federal +amendment will lead to a genuine and whole-hearted application of its +terms; whether, in fact, it will not persuade to hatred of the law, +even contempt for the law, by encouraging evasion of it. Successful +legislation is almost always legislation for which the minds of men are +anxious; the channels of assent to it can rarely be dug too deep. + +All, moreover, that I am saying of territorial locality, seems to me +to apply, with no less emphasis, to what may be termed functional +areas also. Everyone acquainted with the history of churches realizes +the necessity of leaving them free to develop their own internal +life. On matters like ecclesiastical government, dogma, ceremonial, +interference by the state is almost invariably disastrous in its +results. What is true of churches is true also, _mutatis mutandis_, +of other associations. Bodies like the legal and medical professions +are much better able to direct their own internal life than to have it +directed for them by the state. It is necessary, of course, to prevent +them from developing into monopolies; and to that end it is essential +to devise a framework of principle within which they must work, to +retain, also, the right to its revision from without from time to time. +But that said, few would, I think, deny that what we call professional +standards, the jealousy for the honour of the profession, the sense +of _esprit de corps_, the realization that its members owe to the +community something more than the qualities for which payment can be +exacted, these things are born of the large degree of freedom to define +their own life the professions enjoy. + +It is, I think, important to extend that notion of self-government +beyond the professions. We ought to learn to think of industries like +cotton and coal as entities not less real than Lancashire or New +York, as capable, therefore, of being organized for the purpose of +government. Most of the plans as current today for national economic +councils are not, in my judgment, of great value; the satisfactory +weighting of the different elements is really insoluble, and any +problem that concerns industry as a whole seems to me at once civic +in its nature and, therefore, the proper province of the legislative +assembly of the state.[26] But these considerations do not apply to +industries taken individually, or linked together at special points +of intimate contact. It does not seem to me inconceivable that we +should create a Parliament for the mining industry, in which capital, +management, labour and the consumer, should each have their due +representation, and to which should be confided the determination of +industrial standards on the model of professional self-government. +I should give to this Parliament a power of delegated legislation +which would enable it to frame rules of conduct binding upon all the +members of the industry. Thus, while Georgia might refuse to pass a +child-labour law, a particular industry in Georgia might refuse to +allow its members to engage child labour in field or factory. There +might be developed in this way a body of industrial legislation and +jurisprudence growing naturally out of the experience of those who +participate in the operation of the industry, and imposed with a real +sense of freedom because it has been developed from within and is not +the outcome of an external control. The help this system would give +to the creative-minded employer, on the one hand, and the adventurous +trade-union, on the other, needs no emphasis from me. Something of what +it might effect, if planned in a wholesale way, the experiments of the +Amalgamated Clothing Workers and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad have +amply demonstrated. They show clearly, I venture to suggest, that an +authority born of consent is always definitely superior to an authority +born of coercion. And the reason is the simple but vital one that +creative energy is liberated only in the atmosphere of freedom. + + +VI + +In all that I have so far said there is implied a theory of the nature +of law upon which, perhaps, I ought to say a word. The view I am +taking suggests that law is not simply a body of commands justifiable +by virtue of their origin. Laws are rules seeking to satisfy human +desires. They are the more certain of acceptance the more fully they +seek to inquire what desires it is urgent to satisfy, and the best +way of inquiry is to associate men with each stage of the process of +law-making. For men, in fact, will not obey law which goes counter to +what they regard as fundamental. Their notion of what is fundamental +may be wrong, or unwise, or limited; but it is their notion, and they +do not feel free unless they can act by their own moral certainties. It +is useless to tell them that an assumption on their part that they are +entitled to forgo obedience will result in anarchy. Every generation +contains examples of men who, in the context of ultimate experience, +deliberately decide that an anarchy in which they seek to maintain +some principle is preferable to an order in which that principle must +be surrendered. The South in 1861, Ulster in 1914, the Communist in the +context of a capitalist society, these are but variations on the great +theme of Luther’s classic _Ich Kann nicht anders_. They illustrate the +inescapable truth that law must make its way to acceptance through the +channel of consenting minds. + +Let me put this in a different way. Law is not merely a command; it +is also an appeal. It is a search for the embodiment of my experience +in the rule it imposes. The best way, therefore, to make that search +creative is to consult me who can alone fully report what my experience +is. There can be no guarantee that law will be accepted save in the +degree that this is done. Legal right is so made as the individual +recipient of a command invests it with right; he gives it his sanction +by relating it successfully to his own experience. When that relation +cannot be made, the authority of law is always in doubt. And it is in +doubt because, by contradicting the experience of those whom it seeks +to control, it seems to them a frustration of their personality. To +accept the control would be to become unfree. + +An extreme way of putting this view would be to say that law is made by +the individual’s acceptance of it, that the essence of the law-making +process, is the consent of interested minds. At points of marginal +significance, that is, I think, true; and the consequences of the +truth are obviously important. Authority, if my view is right, is +always acting at its peril. It lives not by its power to command but +by its power to convince. And conviction is born of consent for the +simple reason that the real field of social action is in the individual +mind. Somewhere, inevitably, the power to coerce that mind to ways of +thoughts of which it does not approve, breaks down; man, as Tyrrell +said, is driven on “to follow the dominant influence of his life even +if it should break the heart of all the world”. That is the stark fact +which conditions the loyalty any authority seeks to secure. At some +point, it cannot be imposed but must be won from us. And the greater +the degree in which it springs from that persuasion, the greater, also, +is the success of authority in imposing its solutions. No power can +ever hope for successful permanence, no power, either, is entitled to +it, which does not make its way, in vital matters, through the channels +of consent. + +From this two conclusions seem to me to flow. Ours is not a universe +in which the principles of a unified experience are unfolded. It is +a multiverse embodying an ultimate variety of experiences, never +identical, and always differently interpreted. There is enough +similarity of view to enable us, if we have patience and goodwill, to +make enough of unity to achieve order and peace. But that similarity +is not identity. It does not entitle us to affirm that one man’s +experience can be taken as the representation of another’s. It does not +justify the inference that I shall find what I most truly desire in +the desire of another. I am not a part of some great symphony in which +I realize myself only as an incident in the _motif_ of the whole. I +am unique, I am separate, I am myself; out of these qualities I must +build my own principles of action. These are mine only, and cannot +be made for me, at least creatively, by others. For their authority +as principles comes from the fact that I recognize them as mine. +Into them, as principles, I pour my personality, and life, for me, +derives its meaning from their unique texture. To accept the forcible +imposition of other principles upon me, which I do not recognize as +the expression of my experience, is to make of me who might be free, +a slave. I become an instrument of alien purposes, devoted to an end +which denies my self-hood. Law, therefore, as coercion is always +an invasion of personality, an abridgement of the moral stature of +those whom it invades. To be true to its purpose, it must reduce the +imperative element to a minimum if it is to release creativeness and +not destroy it. + +The individual, therefore, is entitled to act upon the judgment of +his conscience in public affairs. He is entitled to assume that he +will not find the rules of the conduct he ought to pursue objectified +in any institution or set of institutions. I agree that, for most of +us, conscience is a poor guide. It is perverse, it is foolish, the +little knowledge it has is small alongside the worth of the social +tradition. But perverse, foolish, ignorant, it is the only guide we +have. Perverse, foolish, ignorant, it is at least ours; and our freedom +comes from acting upon its demands. We ought, doubtless, to convince +ourselves that the path it indicates is one we have no alternative but +to follow. We ought to seek the best possible means for its instruction +and enlightenment. We should remember that civilization is, at best, +a fragile thing, and that to embark upon a challenge to order is to +threaten what little security it has. It may even be wise, as T. H. +Greene once put it, to assume that we should approach the state in fear +and trembling, remembering constantly the high mission with which it is +charged. + +All this may be true, and yet it seems to me to leave the individual no +option but to follow conscience as the guide to civic action. To do +otherwise is to betray freedom. Those who accept commands they know to +be wrong, make it easier for wrong commands to be accepted. Those who +are silent in the presence of injustice are in fact part-authors of it. +It is to be remembered that even a decision to acquiesce is a decision, +that what shapes the substance of authority is what it encounters. If +it meets always with obedience, sooner or later it will assume its own +infallibility. When that moment comes, whatever its declared purpose, +the good it will seek will be its own good and not that of those +involved in its operations. Liberty means being faithful to oneself, +and it is maintained by the courage to resist. This, and this only, +gives life to the safeguards of liberty; and this only is the clue to +the preservation of genuine integrity in the individual life. + +If it is objected that this is a doctrine of contingent anarchy, +that it admits the right of men to rebellion, my answer is that the +accusation is true. But is its truth important? Order, surely, is +not the supreme wrong. Power is not conferred upon men for the sake +of power, but to enable them to achieve ends which win happiness for +each of us. If what they do is a denial of the purpose they serve; +if, as we meet their acts, there appears in them an absence of +goodwill, a blindness to experience alien from their own, an incapacity +imaginatively to meet the wants of others, what alternatives have we +save a challenge to power or a sacrifice of the end of our life? We +do not condemn Washington because there came a moment in his career +when he was compelled to recognize that the time for compromise with +England had passed. We do not, even more notably, condemn those early +Christians who refused to offer incense to the Gods. We have to act +by the dictates of our conscience knowing, as Washington knew, as +the early Christians recognized, that the penalties of failure are +terrible. But we can so act, also, knowing that there is a sense in +which no man who serves his conscience ever fails. + +For by that service he becomes a free man, and his freedom is a +condition of other men’s freedom. There is immense significance in the +fact that those who fought for religious liberty were the unconscious +progenitors of civil liberty also. When they demanded the right to +worship the God they knew, in their own mind they were insisting that +in one sphere, at least, of human experience, their own perception must +count as ultimate. They consecrated freedom to the service of God. But +that, after all, is only one aspect of freedom. Its consecration to +the service of man is, for some of us, not less vital and pervasive. +To fight for the assurance that a man may do his duty as he conceives +it is not only to fight for freedom, but for all the ends which the +emancipation of mankind seeks to attain. I do not know whether liberty +is the highest objective we can serve. I do assert that no other great +purpose is possible of achievement save in the terms of fellowship with +freedom. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FREEDOM OF THE MIND + + +I + +I have sought, so far, to show that, however important be the +political mechanisms on which liberty depends, they will not work of +themselves. They depend for their creativeness upon the presence in +any given society of a determination to make them work. The knowledge +that an invasion of liberty will always meet with resistance from men +determined upon its repulsion, this, in the last analysis, is the only +true safeguard that we have. It means, I have admitted, that a certain +penumbra of contingent anarchy always confronts the state; but I have +argued that this is entirely desirable since the secret of liberty is +always, in the end, the courage to resist. + +The most important aspect of this atmosphere is undoubtedly freedom of +the mind. The citizen seeks for happiness, and the state, for him, is +an institution which exists to make his happiness possible. He judges +it, I have urged, by its capacity to respond to the needs he infers +from the experience he encounters. That experience, I have insisted, is +private to himself. Its predominant quality is its uniqueness. Either +it is his own, or it is nothing. The substitution for it of someone +else’s experience, however much wider or wiser than his, is, where it +is based upon constraint, a denial of freedom. What the citizen, quite +rightly, expects from the state is to have his experience counted +in the making of policy, and to have it counted as he, and he only, +expresses its import. + +Obviously enough, if his experience is to count, a man must be able to +state it freely. The right to speak it, to print it, to seek in concert +with others its translation into the event, is fundamental to liberty. +If he is driven, in this realm, to silence and inactivity, he becomes +a dumb and inarticulate creature, whose personality is neglected in +the making of policy. Without freedom of the mind and of association +a man has no means of self-protection in our social order. He may +speak wrongly or foolishly; he may associate with others for purposes +that are abhorrent to the majority of men. Yet a denial of his right +to do these things is a denial of his happiness. Thereby, he becomes +an instrument of other peoples ends, not himself an end. That is the +essential condition of the perversion of power. Once we inhibit freedom +of speech, we inhibit criticism of social institutions. The only +opinions of which account is then taken are the opinions which coincide +with the will of those in authority. Silence is taken for consent; +and the decisions that are registered as law reflect, not the total +needs of the society, but the powerful needs which have been able to +make themselves felt at the source of power. Historically, the road to +tyranny has always lain through a denial of freedom in this realm. + +I desire here to maintain a twofold thesis. I shall seek to show, +first, that liberty of thought and association--the two things are +inextricably intertwined--is good in itself, and second, that +its denial is always a means to the preservation of some special +and, usually, sinister interest which cannot maintain itself in an +atmosphere of freedom. I shall then discuss what restrictions, if any, +must be placed upon this right, and the conditions it demands for +its maximum realization. I shall, in particular, maintain that all +restrictions upon freedom of expression upon the ground that they are +seditious or blasphemous are contrary to the well-being of society. + +The case for the view that freedom of thought and speech is a good +in itself is fairly easy to make. If it is the business of those who +exercise authority in the state to satisfy the wants of those over whom +they rule, it is plain that they should be informed of those wants; +and, obviously, they cannot be truly informed about them unless the +mass of men is free to report their experience. No state, for instance, +could rightly legislate about the hours of labour if only business men +were free to offer their opinion upon industrial conditions. We could +not develop an adequate law of divorce if only those happily married +were entitled to express an opinion upon its terms. Law must take +account of the totality of experience and this can only be known to it +as that experience is unfettered in its opportunity of expression. + +Most people are prepared to agree with this view when it is made +as a general statement; most people, also, recoil from it when its +implications are made fully known. For it implies not only the right +to beatify the present social order, but the right, also, to condemn +it with vigour and completeness. A man may say that England or America +will never be genuinely democratic unless equality of income is +established there; that equality of income may never be established +except by force; that, accordingly, the way to a genuine democracy lies +through a bloody revolution. Or he may argue that eternal truth is the +sole possession of the Roman Catholic Church; that men can only be +persuaded to understand this by the methods of the Inquisition; that, +therefore, the re-establishment of the Inquisition is in the highest +interest of society. To most of us, these views will seem utterly +abhorrent. Yet they represent the generalizations of an experience that +some one has felt. They point to needs which are seeking satisfaction, +and the society gains nothing by prohibiting their expression. + +For no one really ceases to be a revolutionary Communist or a +passionate Roman Catholic by being forbidden to be either of these. His +conviction that society is rotten at its base is only the more ardently +held, his search for alternative ways of expressing his conviction +becomes only the more feverish as a result of suppression. Terror does +not alter opinion. On the one hand it reinforces it, on the other +it makes the substance of opinion a matter of interest to many who +would, otherwise, have had no interest whatever in it. When the United +States Customs Department suppressed _Candide_ on the ground that it +was an obscene book, they merely stimulated the perverse curiosity +of thousands to whom _Candide_ would have remained less than a name. +When the British Government prosecuted the Communists for sedition +in 1925 the daily reports of the trial, the editorial discussion of +its result, made the principles of Communism known to innumerable +readers who would never, under other circumstances, have troubled to +acquaint themselves with its nature. No state can suppress the human +impulse of curiosity, and there is always a special delight, a kind +of psychological scarcity-value, in knowledge of the forbidden. No +technique of suppression has so far been discovered which does not have +the effect of giving wider currency to the thing suppressed than can be +attained in any other fashion. + +But this is only the beginning of the case for freedom of speech. +The heresies we may suppress today are the orthodoxies of tomorrow. +New truth begins always in a minority of one; it must be someone’s +perception before it becomes a general perception. The world gains +nothing from a refusal to entertain the possibility that a new idea +may be true. Nor can we pick and choose among our suppressions with +any prospect of success. It would, indeed, be hardly beyond the mark +to affirm that a list of the opinions condemned as wrong or dangerous +would be a list of the commonplaces of our time. Most people can see +that Nero and Diocletian accomplished nothing by their persecution of +Christianity. But every argument against their attitude is an argument +also against a similar attitude in other persons. Upon what grounds +can we infer prospective gain from persecution of opinion? If the +view held is untrue, experience shows that conviction of its untruth +is invariably a matter of time; it does not come because authority +announces that it is untrue. If the view is true in part only, the +separation of truth and falsehood is accomplished most successfully in +a free intellectual competition, a process of dissociation by rational +criticism, in which those who hold the false opinion are driven to +defend their position on rational grounds. If, again, the view held is +wholly true, nothing whatever is gained by preventing its expression. +Whether it relates to property, or marriage, to religion or the form +of the state, by being true it demands a corresponding change in +individual outlook and social organization. For untrue opinions do not +permanently work. They impede discovery and they diminish happiness. +They enable, of course, those to whom they are profitable, to benefit +by their maintenance, but it is at the cost of society as a whole. + +There is the further question, moreover, of the persons to whom the +task of selecting what should be suppressed to be confided. What +qualifications are they to possess for their task? What tests are they +to apply from which the desirability of suppression is to be inferred? +A mere zeal for the well-being of society is an utterly inadequate +qualification; for most persons who have played the part of censor have +possessed this and have yet been utterly unfit for their task. The +self-appointed person, Mr Comstock, for instance, merely identifies his +private view of moral right with the ultimate principles of ethics; +and only the intellectually blind would ask that the citizen be fitted +to his vicious bed of Procrustes. The official censor, a man like the +famous Pobedonostev, normally assumes that any thorough criticism of +the existing social order is dangerous and destructive; and, thereby, +he transforms what might be creative demand into secret attack which +is ten times more dangerous in its attack. If you take almost any +of those who are appointed to work of this kind, you discover that +association with it seems necessarily to unfit them for their task. For +it turns them into men who see undesirability in work which the average +man reads without even a suspicion that it is not the embodiment of +experience with which he ought to be acquainted. Anyone who looks +through the list of prohibited publications enforced by the Dominion of +Canada will, I think, get a sense that the office of censorship is the +avenue to folly.[27] No one with whom I am acquainted seems wise enough +or good enough to control the intellectual nutrition of the human mind. + +What tests, further, are they to apply? Broadly speaking, we suppress +publications on the ground that they are obscene or dangerous. But no +one has ever arrived at a working definition of obscenity, even for +legal purposes. Take, for instance, two books suppressed by the English +magistrates for obscenity in 1929. One, Miss Radclyffe Hall’s _Well of +Loneliness_, seemed to men like Mr Arnold Bennett and Mr Bernard Shaw a +work which treated of a theme of high importance to society in a sober +and high-minded way. They saw no reason to suppose that the treatment +of its difficult subject--sexual perversion--could be regarded by any +normal person as offensive. The magistrate, Sir Chartres Biron, took a +different view. I, certainly, am not prepared, on _a priori_ grounds, +to say that a lawyer, however well-trained in the law, has a better +sense of what is likely to produce moral depravity than Mr Bennett or +Mr Shaw; and a reading of Miss Hall’s dull and sincere pamphlet only +reinforces that impression. Another book was distributed privately and +secretly--Mr D. H. Lawrence’s _Lady Chatterly’s Lover_--in a limited +and expensive special edition. I gather that its public sale would +have been definitely prohibited. Yet I observe that some of the most +eminent American critics have praised it as the finest example of a +novel seeking the truth about the sexual relations of men and women +that an Englishman has published in the twentieth century. That may +be--I am not competent to say--excessive praise. My point is that in a +choice, say, between the average police magistrate and Mr Robert Morss +Lovett, I am not prepared to accept the former’s opinion of what I may +be safely left to read. + +Let me remind you, moreover, of what cannot too often be pointed out, +that the rigorous application of the legal tests of obscenity would +prohibit the circulation of a very considerable part of the great +literature of the world. The Bible, Shakespeare, Rabelais, Plato, +Horace, Catullus, to take names at random, would all come under the +ban. It is worth while pointing out that those most concerned with the +suppression of “obscene” books are religious people. On their tests +of obscenity the Bible certainly could not hope to escape; yet they +believe, in general, that the Bible is the inspired word of God, a +position which, I venture to suggest, should at the least give them +pause. I do not know, indeed, how we are to create a healthy social +attitude to the problems of sex, if all that deals with it from a +new point of view, and with a frankness that admits the experimental +nature of our contemporary solutions, is to be dismissed as “obscene”. +Questions like those of birth control, extra-marital love, companionate +marriage, sexual perversion, cannot really be faced in a scientific +fashion by applying to them the standards of a nomadic Eastern people +which drew up its rules more than two thousand years ago. Virtuous +people who shrink from frank discussion in this realm seem to me +responsible for probably more gratuitous suffering than any other group +of human beings. The thing they call “innocence” I believe to be quite +wanton ignorance, and, by its abridgment of freedom, it imprisons human +personality in a fashion that is quite unpardonable. + +The same seems to me to be the case in the realm that is called +blasphemy. I have no sort of sympathy with that attitude of mind which +finds satisfaction in wanton insult to the religious convictions of +others. But I am not prepared for its suppression. For I note that, +historically, there are no limits to the ideas which religious persons +will denounce as blasphemous; and, especially, that in an age of +comparative religious indifference, the hand of persecution almost +invariably chooses to fall only on humble men.[28] It attacks Mr G. +W. Foote, but it leaves Lord Morley free to do infinitely more damage +than any for which Mr Foote can ever have been responsible. I cannot, +moreover, forget that what is blasphemy in Tennessee is common sense +in New York, that the works of Wollaston and Toland and Chubb, which +seemed entirely blasphemous to their generation, seem commonplace +to ourselves. Every religious body really means by blasphemy an +attack upon its fundamental principles. Such attacks are, of course, +necessarily circulated to bring them into contempt. We who read Paine’s +_Age of Reason_ with admiration for its cogency of argument, its +trenchant style, its fearless appetite for truth, can hardly avoid a +sense of dismay when we remember the days when it was secretly passed +from hand to hand as an outrageous production, the possession of which +was itself an indication of social indecency. + +And here let me remind you of certain facts on the other side. We +denominate as blasphemous works calculated to bring the principles of +Christianity into hatred, ridicule, or contempt. As I have said, I +entirely dislike the type of work which finds pleasure in offensiveness +to Christians. But if we are to suppress works, and punish their +authors, because they cause grief to certain of our fellow-citizens, +exactly how far are we to carry the principle? A very large part of +propagandist religious literature is highly offensive to sincere +and serious-minded persons who are unable, in their conscience, to +subscribe to any particular creed. When you remember the descriptions +applied by Mr William Sunday to those who do not accept Christianity, +you cannot, I think, avoid a sense that there is a religious blasphemy +for which, at least from the angle of good manners, nothing whatever +can be said. Mr Sunday is only one of the worse offenders in a whole +tribe of preachers and writers to whom belief, however sincere, that +is alien from their own, is normally and naturally described in the +language it is a euphemism to call Billingsgate; and charges of +immorality are brought against unbelievers by them for which not an +atom of proof exists. Are we to suppress all such publications also? +And if we are to continue this campaign of prohibition to its appointed +and logical end, shall we have time for any other social adventure? + +Nor is this all. In the world of education we are continually +presented with the problem of text-books which are offensive to a +particular denomination. We are asked, for instance, to prohibit +their use in schools. I sit as an appointed member of the Education +Committee of the London County Council. I have been presented there +with a requisitory, drawn up by a Catholic body, against the use of +certain books on the ground that they contain untrue statements about +questions like the Reformation, in which Catholics are particularly +interested. But I have not observed in the same Catholic body a +desire only to use those text-books in their own denominational +schools which Protestants are prepared to accept as a true picture +of the Reformation. Nor is this problem of school text-books merely +religious in character. Americans of our own generation have seen +passionate controversy over the view of the War of Independence, of the +Constitution, of the motives and responsibility in the war of 1914, +which are to be presented not merely to school children, but also to +university students; there is a heresy-hunt in the fields of politics +and economics, a desire to have only “true” opinions taught to the +immature mind. But “true” opinions, on examination, usually turn out to +be the opinions which suit the proponents of some particular cause. +In London we think that a “true” theory of value is best obtained from +the works of Professor Cannan; in Cambridge they pin their faith to +Marshall and Pigou; in the Labour Colleges ultimate wisdom is embodied +in the writings of Marx, and Cannan, Marshall and Pigou are all +dismissed as the pathetic servants of bourgeois capitalism. Is anything +gained for anyone by insisting that truth resides on one side only of +a particular Pyrenees? Is it not wisdom to begin by an admission of +its many-sidedness? And does not that admission involve an unlimited +freedom of expression in the interpretation of facts? For facts, as +William James said, are not born free and equal. They have to be +interpreted in the light of our experience; and to suppress someone’s +experience is to suppress someone’s personality, to impose upon him +our view of what his life implies to the forcible exclusion of that in +which alone he can find meaning. I see neither wisdom nor virtue in +action of this kind. + +So far, I have restricted my discussion to the non-political field, +and before I enter this area, I want, for a moment, both to summarize +the position we have reached and to admit the one limitation on +freedom of expression I am prepared to concede. I have denied that +prohibitions arising from blasphemy or obscenity, or historical or +social unfairness, have any justification. They seem to me unworkable. +They are bad because they prevent necessary social ventilation. They +are bad because they exclude the general public from access to facts +and ideas which are often of vital importance. They are bad because +no one is wise or virtuous enough to stand in judgment upon what +another man is to think or say or write. They are bad because they are +incapable of commonsense application; there is never any possibility +of a wise discrimination in their application. They give excessive +protection to old traditions; they make excessively difficult the +entrance of new. They confer power in a realm where qualifications +for the exercise of power, and tests for its application, are, almost +necessarily, non-existent. For the decision of every question of this +kind is a matter of opinion in which there is no prospect of certainty. +Suppression here means not the prohibition of the untrue or the unjust +or the immoral, but of opinions unpleasing to those who exercise the +censorship. Historically, no evidence exists to suggest that it has +ever been exercised for other ends. + +I do not see any rational alternative to this view. But here I should +emphasize my own belief that, broadly speaking, such freedom of +expression as I have discussed means freedom to express one’s ideas +on general subjects, on themes of public importance, rather than on +the character of particular persons. I have not, I think, a right to +suggest that Jones beats his wife, or that Brown continually cheats his +employer, unless I can prove, first that the suggestions are true, and, +second, that they have a definite public import. I have not a right to +create scandal because I find pleasure or profit in speaking ill of +my neighbour. But if Brown, for instance, is a candidate for public +office, my view that he cheats his employer is directly relevant to +the question of his fitness to be elected; and if I can prove that my +view is true, it is in the public interest that I should make it known. +I cannot, that is to say, regard my freedom of expression as unlimited. +I ought not to be permitted to inflict unnecessary pain on any person +unless there is relevant social welfare in that infliction. + +On the other hand, I would make one remark here that seems to me of +increasing importance in a society like our own. The public interest in +the habits of individuals is real, and we must be careful to give it +its proper protection. It is, I think, reasonable to doubt whether the +Anglo-American law of libel, in its present state, does not push too +far the right of the individual citizen to be protected from comment. +Outrageous damages, which bear no measurable relation to anything, are +often claimed and not seldom awarded. Where a political flavour enters +into a case, it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to persuade a +jury to consider the issue on its merits. I have myself sat on a jury +in a political libel case of which I can only say that I was almost +persuaded to doubt the validity of the jury-system altogether by the +habits there displayed. I am tempted to suggest that, criminal libel +apart, it would be worth while considering the abolition of damages in +all political or quasi-political cases, and the concentration, as an +alternative, upon proper publicity for the form of apology where the +libel is held to be proved. We have, for instance, got into the bad +habit in England of thinking that the social position of the plaintiff +is a measure of the damages he should receive; and it is well known +that there are places where, for instance, a socialist could hardly +hope even for a verdict from any average jury. The case for careful +inquiry, at any rate, seems to me to be made out. As the law at present +stands and works, I do not think I could even say of a candidate for +the House of Commons that he was not likely to be more than a permanent +back-bencher without having to pay heavily for my opinion. + + +II + +But I turn from these relatively simple matters to the political aspect +of freedom of expression which is, of course, the pith of the whole +problem. How far is a man entitled to go in an attack upon the social +order? What opinions, if any, are to be prohibited on the ground that +they incite to subversive conduct? Is there a distinction between the +printed word and the spoken word? Is there a distinction between speech +in one place, and speech in another? Is there a difference between +normal times and a time of crisis like, let us say, a war or a general +strike? At what point, if any, do words become acts of which authority +must take account to fulfil its primary duty of maintaining the peace? + +It will, I think, be universally agreed that all criticism of social +institutions is a matter of degree. Let us take the problem first as +we meet it in normal times and let us view it from the angle of the +English law of sedition.[29] Here it may be said at once that were +that law enforced in its literal terms, political controversy in +England would be impossible. For the declared purpose of the law is to +prevent the established institutions of the state from being brought +into hatred or contempt, and every leader of the opposition is seeking +to do precisely that thing when he makes a political speech. Anyone +who reads, for instance, the utterances of Lord Carson at the time of +the Home Rule fight in 1914, or of Mr Ramsay MacDonald in the General +Election of 1929, cannot avoid the conclusion that, taken literally, +they were seditious. Yet all of us agree that it is not the purpose of +the law to prevent such speeches being made. When, therefore, if ever, +is that law to be brought into operation? + +We must, I think, begin by a distinction between the written and the +spoken word. If an English Communist leader writes a book or pamphlet, +whatever its substance, and to whomever it is addressed, I do not think +the law ought to be used against him. For it is the history of these +matters that if governments once begin to prohibit men from seeking +to prove in writing that violent revolution is desirable, they will, +sooner or later, prohibit them from saying that the social order they +represent is not divine. In Italy, at the moment, for example, papers +are actually suppressed not for anything positive that they say, but +because there is absent from their pages frequent and emphatic eulogy +of the present régime; there have even been calls for suppression +because particular papers, while saying no word against Mussolini, +have been too insistently eulogistic of the Papacy. I yield to no one +in my dissent from, say, Lenin’s analysis of the nature of the modern +state. But I think it urgent that his criticism should be available +to society. For it represents the impress made upon him by experience +of political life, and a government which remains unaware of that +criticism has lost its chance of seeking to satisfy the critic. If it +begins by assuming that the exposition of Revolutionary Communism is +undesirable, it will end, as the record shows, that language classes +to teach English to Russians are a form of Communist propaganda. +There is never any such certitude in matters of social constitution +as to justify us in saying that any exposition of principles must be +suppressed. No authority has ever a capacity for wise discrimination in +these matters; and, even if it had, I do not see why it is justified in +the exercise of discrimination. + +For suppression, in the first place, never convinces. What it does is +to drive a small body of men to desperation and to reduce the masses to +complete apathy in political matters. Most men who are prohibited from +thinking as their experience teaches them soon cease to think at all. +Men who cease to think cease also in any genuine sense to be citizens. +They become the mere inert recipients of orders which they obey +without scrutiny of any kind. And their inertia surrounds the acts of +authority with that false glamour of confidence which mistakes silence +for consent. The government which is not criticized at its base never +truly knows the sentiments to which its activity gives rise among its +subjects. It ultimately must fail to satisfy them because it does not +know what desires it has to satisfy. Political thought, after all, +however unwise or mistaken, is never born in a vacuum. Lenin’s view of +capitalist society is just as relevant to its habits as the view of the +Duke of Northumberland or of Judge Gary; each is born of contact with +it, and each, as it is expressed, has lessons to teach from which, as +these are scrutinized, a wise policy can be born. + +Here, I think, it is relevant to say a word upon one special aspect of +freedom of expression for printed matter. I have argued that no limit +of any kind is to be placed upon it, at any rate in normal times. The +book, the pamphlet, the newspaper, ought to circulate with unimpeded +freedom in whatever direction they can move. Many people who sympathize +with this view will, however, except from this freedom printed +material which is addressed to the armed forces of the state; and most +governments, of course, have special legislation, with specially severe +penalties, against any attempt at interference with their loyalty. I +cannot myself see that this exception is justified. The armed forces +of the state consist of citizens. The government has quite exceptional +opportunities to retain their allegiance. If a printed document is able +to sow disaffection amongst them, there must be something very wrong +with the government. And, in fact, whenever agitation has produced +military or naval disloyalty that has been the outcome not of affection +for the principles upon which the agitators lay emphasis, but of +grievances which have made either soldiers or sailors responsive to a +plea for their disloyalty. That was the case with the Spithead mutinies +of 1797; with the French troops in 1789; with the Russian troops in +1917. If the army or the navy is prepared to turn upon the government, +the likelihood is great that the government is unfit to retain power. +For anyone who can disturb the allegiance of a mind as trained to +obedience as that of the soldier or the sailor has, I believe, an _a +priori_ case for insisting that his particular philosophy corresponds +to an urgent human need. + +It is said that ideas are explosive and dangerous. To allow them +unfettered freedom is, in fact, to invite disorder. But, to this +position, there are at least two final answers. It is impossible to +draw a line round dangerous ideas, and any attempt at their definition +involves monstrous folly. If views, moreover, which imply disorder +are able to disturb the foundations of the state, there is something +supremely wrong with the governance of that state. For disorder is not +a habit of mankind. We cling so eagerly to our accustomed ways that, +as even Burke insisted, popular violence is always the outcome of a +deep popular sense of wrong. The common man can only be persuaded to +outbreak, granted his general habits, when the government of the taste +has lost its hold upon his affections; and that loss is always the +reflection of a profound moral cause. We may, indeed, go further and +argue that the best index to the quality of a state is the degree in +which it is able to permit free criticism of itself. For that implies +an alertness to public opinion, a desire to remedy grievance, which +enables the state to gain ground in the allegiance of its citizens. +Almost always freedom of speech results in a mitigation which renders +disorder unnecessary; almost always, also, prohibition of that freedom +merely makes the agitation more dangerous because it drives it +underground. Rousseau was infinitely more dangerous as a persecuted +wanderer, because infinitely more interesting and, therefore, +infinitely more persuasive, than he would have been when unfettered in +Paris. Lenin did far more harm to Russia as an exile in Switzerland +than he could ever have accomplished as an opposition leader in the +Duma. The right freely to publish the written word is, in fact, the +supreme Katharsis of discontent. Governments that are wise can always +learn more from the criticism of their opponents than they can hope +to discover in the eulogies of their friends. When they stifle that +criticism, they prepare the way for their own destruction. + +There is, I think, an undeniable difference between freedom of written +and freedom of spoken, expression. In the one case, a man attempts +conviction by individual persuasion; he seeks, by argument which he +believes to be rational, to move the mind of those who read what he +has written. To speak at a meeting raises different problems. No one +with experience of a great crowd under the sway of a skilled orator +can doubt his power deliberately to create disorder if he so desires. +A speaker at Trafalgar Square, for instance, who urged a vast meeting +of angry unemployed to march on Downing Street, could do so with a fair +assurance that they would obey his behest. I do not think a government +can be left to the not always tender mercies of an orator with a +grievance to exploit. The state, clearly, has the right to protection +against the kind of public utterance which is bound to result in +disorder. + +But no government is entitled itself to assume that disorder is +imminent: the proof must be offered to an independent authority. And +the proof so offered must be evidence that the utterance to which it +takes exception was, at the time and in the circumstances in which it +was made, definitely calculated to result in a breach of the peace. Its +prohibitions must not be preventive prohibitions. It must not prohibit +a meeting before it is held on the ground that the speaker is likely to +preach sedition there. It must not seek conviction for sedition where +the utterance might, under other circumstances, have had the tendency +to result in a breach of the peace. To use my earlier illustration, I +think a government would be justified in prosecution of the Trafalgar +Square orator; but I do not think it would be entitled to prosecute the +same speaker if he made the same speech on Calton Hill in Edinburgh. +For we know that when men in Edinburgh are incited to march on London, +they have a habit of turning back at Derby. I conclude, therefore, that +the test adopted by Mr Justice Holmes, in his deservedly famous dissent +in _Abrams_ v. U.S.,[30] is the maximum prohibition a government can +be permitted. If it is in fact demonstrable that the speech made had +a direct tendency to incite immediate disorder, the punishment of the +accused is justified. I think such cases should always be tried before +a jury. Experience suggests that a random sample of popular opinion +is more likely to do justice in this type of case than is a judge. I +have myself been present at such trials before a magistrate where the +whole case for the prosecution quite obviously broke down and where, +nevertheless, a conviction was secured. I do not for a moment suggest +that we can be confident that a jury will act wisely; but my sense of +our experience is that there is less chance of its acting unwisely than +persons who occupy an official position of any kind. With the best will +in the world, their tendency is to be unduly responsive to executive +opinion. + +You will see that my anxiety is to maximize the difficulties of any +government which desires to initiate prosecutions in this realm. My +reason for this view is the quite simple one that I do not trust the +executive power to act wisely in the presence of any threat, nor +assumed threat, to public order. Anyone who studies the treason trials +of 1794, or, even more striking, the cases under the Espionage Act in +America during 1917-20, will be convinced of the unwisdom of allowing +the executive an undue latitude. Every state contains innumerable and +stupid men who see in unconventional thought the imminent destruction +of social peace. They become Ministers; and they are quite capable of +thinking that a society of Tolstoyan anarchists is about to attempt +a new gunpowder plot. If you think of men like Lord Eldon, like Sir +William Joynson-Hicks, like Attorney-General Palmer, you will realize +how natural it is for them to believe that the proper place for Thoreau +or Tolstoy, for William Morris or Mr Bernard Shaw, is a prison. I am +unable to take that view; and I am therefore anxious that they should +not be able to make it prevail without finding that there are barriers +in their path. + + +III + +Views such as I have put forward are often regarded with sympathy +when their validity is limited to normal times. In a crisis, it is +argued, different considerations prevail. When the safety of a state +is threatened it is bound to take, and is justified in taking, all +action to end the crisis. To suggest that it should be then bound by +principles which weaken its effective striking power, is, it is said, +to ask it to fight with one hand tied behind its back. The first +objective of any society must be organized security; it is only when +this has been obtained, that freedom of speech is within the pale of +discussion. + +I am unable to share this view. We have really to examine two quite +different positions. There is, first, the question of the principles +to be applied in a period of internal violence; there is, next, the +quite special question of limitation upon utterance in a period of +war. I agree at once that it is entirely academic to demand freedom of +speech in a time of civil war, for the simple reason that no one will +pay the slightest attention to the demand; violence and freedom are, +_a priori_, contradictory terms. But I would point out two things. In +general, revolutions fail because those who make them deny freedom to +their opponents. Losing criticism, they do not know the limits within +which they can safely operate; they lose their power because they are +not told when they are abusing it. I can think of no revolutionary +period in history when a government has gained by stifling the opinion +of men who did not see eye to eye with it; and I suggest that the +revolutionary insistence that persuasion is futile finds little +creative evidence in its support. + +But when once the question has been settled of who is to possess power +other questions of urgent delicacy arise in which, as I think, the +principles I have laid down possess an irresistible force. There is +the problem of how the rebel and the disaffected are to be treated; of +whether the resumption of order is to be followed by free discussion; +of the power to be exercised by the military authority over ordinary +citizens not engaged in armed hostility to the régime. Here I can +only express the view that the resumption of order ought always to +be followed forthwith by the normal principles of judicial control; +and that the military authorities ought not, save where it is quite +impossible for the civil courts to exercise their jurisdiction, to have +any powers over ordinary citizens. + +These are rigorous views; and, perhaps, I may devote a little time +to their exposition. I know of no case where the state has exercised +extraordinary power outside the normal process of law, in which that +authority has not been grossly abused. It was abused in the Civil +War even under a mind so humane and generous as that of Lincoln; it +was emphatically and dangerously abused in the Amritsar rebellion +of 1919. Let me illustrate, from this latter example, some of the +things that were done. Two men were arrested in Amritsar prior to the +declaration of martial law and deported to an extreme and undisturbed +part of the province; on the declaration of martial law, they were +brought back to Lahore, which was in the martial law area, and tried +and sentenced by a martial law tribunal. A number of pleaders were +arrested in Gudaspur, where there was no disturbance, taken under +revolting conditions to Lahore, and confined there in the common jail +for a period lasting up to a month. They were then released, without +any charges being preferred against them; on the evidence, indeed, it +is difficult to know with what offence they could have been charged. +In the trial, again, of one Harkishan Lal, and others, for treason +and waging war against the King-Emperor, the accused were not allowed +to have a lawyer of their own choosing; a full record of the case +was not taken, and the private notes of counsel for the defence had +to be surrendered by him to the Court at the end of each day. Under +such conditions it is difficult to see how any adequate defence was +possible. A punitive detachment, again, under a Colonel Jacob, tried by +drumhead court-martial and flogged, a man who refused, it appears with +some truculence, to say who had destroyed some telegraph wires; later +it appeared that the man, as he had asserted, had in fact no knowledge +of who had destroyed them. In Lahore--to take a final instance--the +military officer in command prohibited more than a few persons to +congregate in the streets; a few persons did so congregate and they +were flogged. On investigation, after the flogging, it was found that +the group was a wedding-party whose purpose was not more dangerous than +that of any other persons engaged in a similar function.[31] + +I do not, of course, suggest that there is anything especially cruel +or remarkable in these instances. Whether you study repression in +Ireland or Russia, Bavaria or Hungary or India, its history is +always the same. The fact always emerges that once the operation of +justice is transferred from the ordinary courts to some branch of the +executive, abuses always occur. The proper protection of the individual +is deliberately neglected in the belief that a reign of terror will +minimize disaffection. There is no evidence that it does. If it could, +there would have been no Russian Revolution; and there would be no +movement for Indian self-government today. The error inherent in any +invasion of individuality, such as a system of special courts implies, +is that it blinds the eyes of government to the facts not only by +suppressing illegitimate expression of opinion, but by persuading it +that most opinion which finds expression is illegitimate if it is +not in the nature of eulogy. Even Lincoln supported his generals in +completely indefensible attacks on civilian rights. Executive justice, +in fact, is simply an euphemism for the denial of justice; and the +restoration of order at this cost involves dangers of which the price +is costly indeed. + +The problem of war is, in a sense, a special case of the problem of +disorder; but, in fact, it raises quite different considerations. +Let me first of all make the point that if you are a citizen in a +besieged town, you cannot expect a normal freedom of speech; to be +within the area of actual military operations means that you must not +hope to be regarded as an individual. You become, from the nature of +things, a unit of attack or defence whose personality is immaterial +and insignificant. The position here is extraordinary; and principles +have little or no relation to the problems that arise. The case, +as elsewhere, merely affords proof that liberty and violence are +antithetic terms. + +But let us rather take the position of a citizen whose country is +involved in war as, say, England in 1914, or America in 1917. What are +his rights and duties then? I would begin by making the point that the +fact of belligerency does not suspend his citizenship; he owes as much, +perhaps more than ever, the contribution his instructed judgment can +make, to the public good. The scale of operations cannot, I think, make +any difference to that duty. It is as real, and as compelling, when +they are big, as in the war of 1914, as when, as in the Boer War, or +the Spanish-American War, they are relatively small. If I think the war +a just one, it is my duty to support it, and if I think it unjust there +is no alternative open to me except opposition to it. I believe, for +instance, that the opposition of Mr Ramsay MacDonald and Mr Snowden to +the war of 1914 was a fulfilment, on their part, of the highest civil +obligation. No citizen can assume that his duty in wartime is so to +abdicate the exercise of his judgment that the executive has a blank +cheque to act as it pleases. No government, therefore, is entitled to +penalize opinion at a time when it is more than ever urgent to perform +the task of citizenship. If a man sincerely thinks, like James Russell +Lowell, that war is merely an alias for murder, it is his duty to say +so even if his pronouncement is inconvenient to the government of the +day. + +I cannot, indeed, believe that there is any case on the other side +worthy of serious consideration. In the war of 1914, it was said that +hostile opinion must be controlled because it hinders the successful +prosecution of the war. But behind the facade of prejudice contained +in the imputation of a term like hostility, there are several issues +each one of which requires analysis. For what does “hostile opinion” +mean? Does it imply hostility to the inception of a war, to the methods +of its prosecution, to the end at which it aims, to the terms on which +its conclusion is proposed? In the war of 1914, the critics were +divided into camps on each of these views. There were men, like Mr +MacDonald, who thought the war unjustified in its inception and bad +in its conclusion. There were others who criticized the manner, both +diplomatic and technical, of its prosecution. Was it, for instance, +hostility to the prosecution of the late war to criticize Lord +Jellicoe’s conduct at the Battle of Jutland, or Sir Ian Hamilton’s +handling of the operations at the Dardanelles? Was it, again, hostility +on the part of _The Times_ to attack the Asquith Government on the +ground, rightly or wrongly, that it showed a lack of energy in building +up a munitions supply? If a statesman not in office, Mr Roosevelt, +for example, thinks the diplomatic policy of the executive likely +to be attended by fatal results, must he confine himself to private +representations, lest public utterance hinder the national unity? If an +Englishman like Lord Lansdowne believed, as President Wilson believed +in 1916, that peace by negotiation is preferable to peace by victory in +the field, because of the human cost that victory entails, has he no +obligation to his fellow-citizens who are paying that cost with their +lives? + +It is evident from our experience that to limit the expression of +opinion in wartime to opinion which does not hinder its prosecution +is, in fact, to give the executive an entirely free hand, whatever +its policy, and to assume that, while the armies are in the field, +an absolute moral moratorium is imperative. That is, surely, a quite +impossible position. No one who has watched at all carefully the +process of governance in time of war can doubt that criticism was never +more necessary. Its limitation is, in fact, an assurance that the unity +of outlook is a guarantee that mistakes will be made and wrong done. +For once the right to criticize is withdrawn, the executive commits +all the natural follies of dictatorship. It assumes a semi-divine +character for its acts. It deprives the people of information essential +to a proper judgment of its policy. It misrepresents the situation it +confronts by that art of propaganda which, as Mr Cornford has happily +said, enables it to deceive its friends without deceiving its enemies. +A people in wartime is always blind to the facts of its position and +anxious to believe only agreeable news; the government takes care to +provide it only with news that is pleasant. If no such news is at +hand it will be manufactured. Petty successes will be magnified into +resounding victories; defeats will be minimized, wherever possible. The +agony of the troops will be obscured by the clouds of censorship. A +wartime government is always obtuse to suggestion, angry when inquiry +is suggested, careless of truth. It can, in fact, only be moralized +to the degree to which it is subject to critical examination in every +aspect of its policy. And to penalize, therefore, the critic is not +only to poison the moral foundations of the state, but to make it +extremely difficult, when peace comes, for both government and the mass +of citizens to resume the habits of normal decency. + +Freedom of speech, therefore, in wartime seems to me broadly to involve +the same rights as freedom of speech in peace. It involves them, +indeed, more fully because a period of national trial is one when, +above all, it is the duty of citizens to hear their witness. I do not, +of course, mean that a citizen in wartime should be free to communicate +secret military plans to the enemy; I do mean that if a man feels, +like Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, that British policy in South Africa +is “methods of barbarism,” it is his right, as well as his duty, to +say so. Obviously critical activity of this kind will be unpopular, +and a government which helps in the making of its unpopularity will +find the task of suppression easy. But it will pay a heavy price for +suppression. The winged words of criticism scatter, only too often, +the seeds of peace. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s attack on the +Balfour Government persuaded General Botha that trust in Great Britain +might not be misplaced; President Wilson’s speeches, especially his +Fourteen Points, were, impliedly, a criticism of Allied policy, and +that which, also, awakened liberal opinion in Germany to a sense of +its responsibilities. Wartime unity of outlook, in a word, is never +worth the cost of prohibitions. If the policy of a state which decides +upon war does not command the general assent of citizens, it has no +right to make war. If the number of those hostile is considerable, the +policy is, at the least, a dubious one. If the number is small, there +is no need to attempt suppression in the interest of success. The only +way, in fact, to attain the right is by free discussion; and a period +of crisis, when the perception of right is difficult, only makes the +emphasis upon freedom more fundamental. + +Let me illustrate my view with reference to one or two of the decisive +factors in the Peace of Versailles. No one now believes the wartime lie +that Germany was solely responsible for the war; her responsibility may +be greater than that of some others, but it is agreed that the burden +of Russia is at least as heavy and that war, in any case, was rooted +in the nature of the European system. But, in the interest of national +unity, it was regarded as essential to represent Germany as the sole +conspirator against European peace. She was painted as a malefactor +whose sins were incapable of exaggeration. Her virtues were denied, her +achievements belittled, until what Mr Lippmann terms a “stereotype” of +her was built up for public use which made her appear to the average +man a criminal who could not be too severely punished. The statesmen +who constructed this stereotype knew that it was untrue; but they +hoped, doubtless, to escape its consequences, when the victory had been +won. They found that they could not do so. They had so successfully +repressed all effort at reasonable delineation, that the atmosphere +of hate was unconquerable. They had no alternative to a Carthaginian +peace because that seemed, to the masses they had deceived, the +only possible course for justice to take. They knew, as the famous +memorandum, for instance, of Mr. Lloyd George makes manifest,[32] that +a Carthaginian peace was disastrous for Europe; but it was too late to +destroy the legend they had created. Like those whom Dante describes in +the Inferno, they were punished by the realization of their announced +desires. + +The world, in this context, has paid the price for the suppression of +truth; and another phase of the suppression should also be remembered. +It is usually agreed that some of the worst elements in the Peace +of Versailles were the result of the Secret Treaties by which the +Allies, exclusive of America, bound themselves to each other before +the entrance of America into the war. Nowhere among the associated +powers was the desire for a just peace more widespread than in America; +nowhere, also, was the discussion of war-aims more rigorously curtailed +as a hindrance to the full prosecution of the war. Had discussion of +the peace been full and effective in those critical years, the liberal +instincts of President Wilson might, when reinforced by the weight of +informed opinion, have compelled at least a considerable mitigation +of the secret treaties. They had been published in the American Press +after their issue by the Bolsheviks in 1917; full discussion would have +revealed their inadequacies, and enabled the President to counteract +what there was of evil in their substance. But the destruction of free +opinion acted as a smoke-screen to conceal them, and Mr Wilson did +not seriously give his mind to them until he reached Paris. It was +then too late to undo their consequences. Here, in fact, as elsewhere, +uncontrolled power acted like a miasma to blot out the only atmosphere +in which truth could be made manifest. No government was compelled to +do its duty, because the means were wanting to inform it of what its +duty was. The powers had forgotten, or had chosen to forget, that they +could not hope for a just peace save by freeing the minds of men and +women who cared for justice. + + +IV + +So far, I have considered freedom in the political sphere as though it +concerned only a single individual placed over against society and the +state. I have sought to discuss what his freedom means in the complex +relationships in which he is involved. But, obviously, this is an undue +simplification of the problem. The individual, in fact, does not stand +alone; he joins hands with others of like mind to persuade, sometimes +to compel, society to the adoption of the view they share. It is +unnecessary for me to emphasize the vital part played by associations +in the modern community.[33] Granted that they have their dangers, they +are not only a vital expression of human personality, but an expression +as natural as the state itself. That a man must be free to combine with +his fellows for joint-action in some realm in which they have a kindred +interest is, I take it, of the essence of liberty. The point it is +important to examine is the degree of control, if any, that the state +is entitled to exercise over voluntary associations. + +Let me say at once that I know no question more difficult in the whole +range of political science. I am quite certain that, from the angle +of individual freedom, the less interference the state attempts, the +better for everyone concerned; but, equally, I am clear that to some +interference the state is fully entitled. I should deny, for instance, +the right of any voluntary association to inflict physical punishment +or imprisonment upon its members; and I should argue that any state +was justified in immediate and drastic interference to this end. But +the real problems we encounter are not so simple as this. Joseph Smith +announces his reception of a message from Heaven ordaining the duty of +men to practise polygamy in a community where the law only recognizes +monogamy; what rights of interference has the state when a body of men +and women join him and begin to give effect to his teaching? What are +the rights of the state when a congress of trade unionists declares +a general strike? Are those rights different when the purpose of the +strike is industrial from what they are if it is political? How are +we to distinguish between the two? What are the rights of combination +among men employed in industries the nature of which makes the service +they perform fundamental to the community? What should be the attitude +of the state to a society of men engaged in propaganda for a revolution +by the use of physical force? Is there a difference between such a +society when it merely preaches the desirability of such a revolution +and when it acts to that end? Does action, in the latter case, mean +embarkation upon rebellion, for example, the purchase of machine-guns, +or does it extend, say, to the stirring-up of industrial strife in the +hope that a resort to political rebellion may be its outcome? + +You will see that these are not merely academic questions; every one +of them has been in the forefront of political discussion this last +half-century, and all save the first have been vital themes of decision +in the years since the war. Take first the case of an association +which, like the Mormon Church, desires to practise modes of conduct +different from those pursued by the society as a whole. We have to +assume that the members of the association have joined it voluntarily, +and continue voluntarily in its membership. We have to assume, further, +that they do not desire to force their particular way of life upon +others; for some single realm of conduct, like the realm of marriage, +they desire that they shall be left free from interference by the +organized power of society. I cannot see that we are entitled to +interfere with them. We may think them unwise, foolish, muddle-headed, +immoral. We know perfectly well that we cannot hope, by the external +constraint of law, to abolish all conduct that comes within those +terms. I happen to think that it is a gross superstition to leave +money to the Roman Catholic Church that masses may be said for the +testator’s soul; but I should think it an unwarrantable interference +with the relations between that Church and its members if such bequests +were forbidden. I see no evidence to suggest that the practice of +polygamy is worse, in its nature, than a hundred other practices which +organized society either directly permits, or wisely leaves alone, +because it knows that rigorous control would be utterly futile. The +only way to deal with the ideals of the Mormon Church is to prove +their undesirability to their members. On the evidence of history, +persecution will not be acceptable as proof; and it is not improbable +that the only legal effect of prohibition has been to make furtive and +dishonest what was, at first, open and avowed. _Mutatis mutandis_, +this seems to me the case with all similar problems of association. If +a society of women, enthusiastic for the independence of their sex, +formed themselves into an association to propagate and practise the +(to them) ideal of children outside the tie of marriage, I should not +think the state entitled to interfere with its work. So, too, I should +argue, with a principle like birth-control. The state is not entitled +to prohibit diffusion of such knowledge, or the practice of it. When it +does, it makes the family nothing more than an instrument of fecundity, +and destroys the whole character of that right to privacy which is the +foundation of harmonious sexual relationship. + +I argue, therefore, that voluntary bodies are entitled outside the +realm where their ideas and conduct are intended directly to alter the +law, or to arrest the continuity of general social habits, to believe +what they please and to practise what they please. This would not +permit a body of burglars to take over from Proudhon the principle that +property is theft and assume their right to restore it to themselves; +but it would justify, to take the case of principles I personally +abhor, a society of Mormons practising polygamy in a society like that +of the United States. Let me turn from this to the political field. I +take first the question of the right of the state to control freedom +of association in the industrial sphere. Practically speaking, the +question reduces itself to one of whether the state is justified in +limiting the power of a trade union, or of a combination of trade +unions to call out its members on strike. I want to put on one side the +technical juristic questions involved and to discover, if I can, the +justice of the general principles which underlie the problem. + +These are, I think, broadly four in number. It is argued that the state +has a right to prohibit a general strike on the ground that this is +an attempt to coerce the government either directly, by making it +introduce legislation which it would not otherwise do, or indirectly, +by inflicting such hardship on the community that public opinion forces +the government to act. It is said, secondly, that the state is entitled +to prohibit those whom it directly employs, for example postmen, from +either going on strike, or affiliating themselves with any organization +the nature of which may compromise the neutrality of the government. +It is said, thirdly, that certain industries, railways, for example, +or electricity supply, are so vital to the community that continuity +of service in them is the law of their being, and that, therefore, +the right to strike can be legitimately denied to those engaged in +them. It is argued, fourthly, that a limitation upon the purposes of +trade unions, so that they are confined within their proper industrial +sphere, is also justified. + +I want to analyse each of these principles separately, but certain +preliminary observations are important. In any industrial society, as +Mr Justice Holmes has insisted,[34] liberty of contract always begins +where equality of bargaining power begins. Granted, therefore, the +normal conditions of modern enterprise, only the existence of strong +trade unions will ensure to the average worker just terms in his +contract of service. If he stands alone, he has neither the knowledge +nor the power to secure for himself proper protection. Nor is this +all. Strong trade unionism always means that public opinion can be +made effective in an industrial dispute. One has only to compare +the situation in the British textile industries, where the power of +the unions necessarily involves a search by the state, if there is +a dispute, for the terms of a just settlement, with that in America +where, from the weakness of the unions, the state seems hardly to +know when a dispute has occurred, where, also, the police-power is +almost invariably exerted on the side of the employer, to realize +the meaning of strong trade unionism. It is, in fact, the condition +of industrial justice. No limitation upon freedom to associate is, +I urge, permissible unless it can be demonstrated that clear and +decisive advantage to the community, including, be it remembered, trade +unionists themselves, is likely to result. + +In this background, let us examine the first of the four principles I +have enumerated. No coercion of the government, direct or indirect, is +legitimate. If men want to obtain from government a solution other than +government is willing to attempt, the way to that end is not by the use +of industrial power, but through the ballot-box at a general election. +Or, from the angle of indirect coercion, the first interest of the +state is in the general well-being of the community; a general strike +necessarily aims at that well-being and may therefore be prohibited. +The general strike, even a large sympathetic strike, is in fact a +revolutionary weapon. As such, it is a threat to the Constitution and +illegal as well as unjustifiable. + +I do not think the problem is so straightforward as the delusive +simplicity of this argument would seem to make it. If it is said that +the Trades Union Congress of Great Britain would not be justified in +calling a general strike to compel the government to make Great Britain +a federation, I should agree at once. But I point out that no one +supposes it would take such action and that therefore a prohibition +of it is unnecessary. But I should not agree that a general strike is +unjustified to secure the eight-hour day, or to protect the payment of +unemployment relief, or to continue the Trade Board system in sweated +industries. Whether a general strike for these, or similar ends, would +be wise is another matter. That it cannot in any circumstances be +justified I am not prepared to say until I know the circumstances of +some given case. I am not willing, for instance, to condemn the General +Strike of 1926; on a careful analysis of its history, I believe that +the blame for its inception lies wholly at the door of the Baldwin +Government. No one acquainted with the character of the trade union +movement but knows that a weapon so tremendous as the general strike +will only be called into play on the supreme occasion. To lay it down +as law that, whatever the occasion, the weapon shall not be used, seems +to me an unjustifiable interference with freedom. + +I am not greatly moved by the argument that it involves coercion of the +government. There are occasions when that coercion is necessary, and +even essential. I believe that was the case in Great Britain in 1926. +The trade unions would never have called the strike had they seen in +the policy of the government even the fragment of a genuine search for +justice. But the fact was that Mr Baldwin and his colleagues simply +acted as the mouthpiece of the coalowners. To illegalize a general +strike in that background is to say that the trade unions should have +acquiesced in the defeat of the miners without an attempt to prove +their solidarity with them. It would be to announce to government that +the ultimate weapon of Labour is one the use of which it need never +fear. There is no danger that the general strike will ever be other +than a weapon of last resort; the occasions when it can be successfully +used will be of the utmost rarity. But they may occur. I cannot accept +the position that government is always entitled to count on industrial +peace, whatever its policy. Nor do I see why it is unconstitutional for +Labour, as in 1926, to withdraw from work in an orderly and coherent +way. + +I do not deny, of course, that both a general strike, and others of far +less amplitude, inflict grave injury and hardship upon the community. +But when trade unions seek for what they regard as justice, one of +their most powerful sources of strength is the awakening of the slow +and inert public to a sense of the position. Effectively to do this, +in a real world, it must inconvenience the public; that awkward giant +has no sense of its obligations until it is made uncomfortable. When it +is aroused, if, for instance, trains do not run, or coal is not mined, +the public begins to have interest in the position, to call for action. +Without some alternative which attempts to secure attention for a just +result--I know of no such alternative--the infliction of hardship on +the community seems to me the sole way, even if an unfortunate way, to +the end the trade unions have in view. To limit the right to strike is +a form of industrial servitude. It means, ultimately, that the worker +must labour on the employer’s terms lest the public be inconvenienced. +I can see no justice in such a denial of freedom. + +Two further points it is worth while to make. It is sometimes agreed +that while the state ought not to restrict freedom of association for +industrial ends, it is justified in doing so when the strike-weapon is +used for some political purpose. This, indeed, was one of the objects +of the Baldwin Government in enacting the Trades Disputes Act of 1927. +But I know of no formula whereby such a division of purposes can be +successfully made. There is no hard and fast line between industrial +action and political action. There is no hard and fast line which +enables us to say, for instance, that pressure for a Factory Act is +industrial action, but pressure for the ratification of the Washington +Hours Convention political. Extreme cases are easy to define; but there +is a vast middle ground with which the trade unions must concern +themselves and this escapes definition of a kind that will not hamper +the trade union in legitimate activity vital to its purpose. And there +are certain types of political action by trade unions--a strike against +war, for example--which I do not think they ought in the interest +of the community itself, to abandon. Quite frankly, I should have +liked to see a general strike proclaimed against the outbreak of war +in 1914; and I conceive the power to act in that way as a necessary +and wise protection of a people against a government which proposes +such adventures. You cannot compartmentalize life; and where grave +emergencies arise, the weapons to be utilized must be fitted to meet +them. A government which knew that its declaration of war was, where it +intended aggressive action, likely to involve a general strike, would +be far less likely to think in belligerent terms. I do not see why such +a weapon should be struck from the community’s hand. I do not forget +that the German Republic was saved from the Kapp Putsch by a general +strike. + +Nor must we forget the limits within which effective legal action is +possible. _Jus est quod jussum est_ is a maxim the validity of which +is singularly unimpressive. When the issue in dispute seems to the +trade unions so vital that only by a general strike can they defend +their position adequately, they will, in those circumstances, defend +their position whatever the law may be. Legal prohibition will merely +exacerbate the dispute. It will transfer the discussion of legality +which serves merely to conceal it. A legal command is, after all, +a mere static form of words; what gives it appropriateness is its +relevance as just to the situation to which it is applied. And its +relevance as just is made not by those who announce that it is to +be applied, but by those who receive its application. The secret of +avoiding general strikes does not lie in their prohibition but in the +achievement of the conditions which render them unnecessary. + +Nor is the denial of the right to declare a general strike a necessary +protection of the total interest of the community. Right and wrong +in these matters are matters to be defined in each particular case. +A government which meets the threat of a general strike is not +entitled to public support merely because it meets the threat. It +is no more possible to take that view than it is to say that all +governments deserve support when they confront a rebellion of their +subjects. Everything depends on what the general strike is for, +just as everything depends on the purpose of the rebellion; and the +individual trade unionist must make up his mind about the one, just as +the individual citizen must make up his mind about the other. Law in +this realm is, in fact, largely futile. It could not prevent a general +strike by men who saw no alternative open to them; and, in that event, +it would merely intensify its rigours when it came. The limitation +of liberty in this realm seems to me, therefore, neither just in its +purpose nor beneficent in its results. + +I do not, of course, deny that freedom of action in this field is +capable of being abused. That is the nature of liberty. Any body of +persons who exercise power may abuse it. It is an abuse of power +when an employer dismisses his workmen because he does not like +their political opinions. It is an abuse of power when the owners of +halls in Boston refuse to hire them to the promoters of a meeting in +memory of Sacco and Vanzetti. It was an abuse of power when British +naval officers connived at the attempted internment of the Belgian +socialist, M. Camille Huysmans, in England. It was, I think, an abuse +of power when the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge refused to admit +Nonconformists as students, or Parliament to seat Mr Bradlaugh because +he was an infidel. But the trade unions are no more likely, on the +historic record, to abuse their power than is Parliament itself. The +latter, if it wished, has the legal competence to abolish the trade +unions, to disenfranchise the working classes, to confine membership +of the House of Commons to persons with an independent income. We +know that Parliament is unlikely to do any of these things because +omnicompetence, when gravely abused, ceases to be omnicompetent. And +the same truth holds, as it seems to me, of the liberty to proclaim a +general strike. + +A much more difficult problem arises where the second of my four +principles is concerned. A government is, I think, entitled generally +to the loyal and continuous service of its employees. It is therefore +entitled to make regulations which restrain their liberty of action. +The army and navy and the police, in particular, occupy a special +position in the state; if they were free, like ordinary citizens, to +withdraw their labour as they pleased, the executive power would be in +an impossible position. The government, therefore, may make suitable +regulations for their control. But it is important, in the framing of +these regulations, that the conditions of service should be just. To be +just, two principles are, I suggest, of primary importance. They should +be made and administered in conjunction with those who are affected by +them; and in their application or change executive action should not be +the final court of appeal. The principles which, in England, we call +Whitleyism are the _quid pro quo_ which government servants of this +type are entitled to expect in return for the surrender of the right +to strike; and Whitleyism must include the right of those servants to +appeal from an executive decision to such a body as the Civil Service +Division of the Industrial Court. To leave the executive sole master +of the field is to invite the kind of purblind folly which resulted, +in 1919, in the police strikes of Boston and London. Here, certainly, +the fact that the governments concerned were the judges in their own +cause made it impossible for the police to get either attention or +justice without drastic action. And I draw your attention to the fact +that although in each case the original strikers were defeated, their +successors obtained the terms, and even more than the terms, for which +they fought. + +The defence forces of the state constitute a special case. When we turn +to the ordinary public services, central and local, quite different +considerations emerge. If you analyse Whitehall, for instance, you +will find a very small body of men and women who may be regarded as +concerned with the making of policy; below them is another body, +perhaps two or three times as large, engaged in assembling the material +out of which policy is made, and applying it in minor cases; while +below these once more is a vast army of clerks engaged in routine work +of a more or less mechanical kind. To this last class, it cannot, I +think, be said that government emerges as an employer different in +kind from what they would encounter in the ordinary labour market. +General economic conditions govern their pay; in France and America, +indeed, it is below, rather than above, the level obtaining elsewhere +for their kind of work. All their interests go along with those engaged +in similar employment outside the sphere of government activity. Their +union, therefore, with persons in private firms seems to me justified +in order to raise their general economic level; and I do not see the +justice of prohibiting it as was done by the Baldwin Government in the +Trades Disputes Act of 1927. I think, further, that they are entitled +to strike, if there is no other way in which they can, as they think, +secure the enforcement of their demands; though I think, also, that +the executive would be justified in compelling them to exhaust the +resources of a comprehensive scheme of conciliation before they went +so far. The history, indeed, of most modern civil services. France +being a notable exception[35] shows clearly that there is no danger of +officials abusing the right to strike. But it shows also the unwisdom +of leaving the government free to determine the substance of the +contract of service. It is just as likely as any private employer to +extract the most it can get for the least it needs to give; and it is +no more fit than any other employer to be left uncontrolled in this +field. The more labour conditions in government service are determined +finally by an independent authority, the more reasonable they are +likely to be. We must not be led away by false claims to a special +majesty born of its sovereign character to regard the state as entitled +to a peculiar and uncontrolled power over its servants. History +shows that it is just as likely as anyone else to abuse an unlimited +authority. + +The civil servant is not merely an employee of government; he is also a +citizen. In our own day, especially, delicate questions have arisen as +to the right of the civil servant, or of a person engaged in the armed +forces of the state, to enjoy all the normal political privileges of a +person in private employ. Is a civil servant, for instance, entitled to +enter on a political career with the chance, if it is interrupted, to +return to his department? Most modern states, England, for instance, +Canada, South Africa, regard political activities as beyond the area +within which a civil servant may engage; France, on the other hand, +hardly limits its officials in this way, while Germany expressly allows +its officials to engage in politics, and some fifty civil servants are +now in the Reichstag, with the power to return to their departments if +they are defeated. Certainly there are few rights for which the rank +and file of officials press so strongly as for this; and they regard +the limitation of their political opportunities as an invasion of +civic liberty at once unnecessary and unjustifiable. + +I do not think the problem is a simple one; and I think any solution +of it must therefore be complex in character. If a high official of +the Foreign Office in England could be elected to Parliament, spend +a term there in bitter criticism of the Foreign Secretary and then, +on defeat, return to work with the minister whom he had sought to +destroy, the latter’s position would, I think, be intolerable. There +is, that is to say, a class of civil service work the very nature and +associations of which involves exclusion from political life; and if +those engaged therein desire a political career, they must terminate +their connexion with the civil service. We can, of course, draw a line. +I see no reason why all the industrial employees of the government, +postmen, for instance, or shipwrights in a national dockyard, should +not enjoy all ordinary civil rights. I see no reason, either, to +expect any deleterious consequence if civil servants below what we +call in England the executive class are allowed ordinary political +rights, so long as a decent discretion in their exercise is observed. +Those engaged in the making of policy must, in my judgment, accept a +self-denying ordinance in this regard. Unless government can be assured +that its chief officials are aloof from political ties, it cannot trust +them; and all the considerations which create a “spoils system” will +then come into play. Since experience makes it evident that a spoils +system is incompatible with either honest or efficient administration, +a restriction upon the liberty of public officials is, I would argue, +justified. It is an inevitable part of their contract of service from +the point of view of the end that service is intended to secure. + +I believe, further, that this restriction applies with special force +to the Army and Navy and to the police. The state is justified, in the +interest of the community, in placing an absolute embargo upon the +political activities of all their members. For unless this liberty is +restrained, their allegiance becomes the possession of a party and +they cannot give that neutral service which is the basic principle +of their existence. Anyone who remembers the attempted use of the +Army in 1913-14 for Ulster, the habits of the French Army during the +Dreyfus period, the peculiar relations between the German Army and +the Monarchy, will easily see how vital is this abstinence. There +are American cities where the relations between big business and the +police mean that the authority of the latter is certain to be abused in +an industrial dispute. Nothing, perhaps, illustrates more nicely the +delicacy of this problem than the activities of Sir Henry Wilson[36] +during the years from 1912. He was, it appears, prepared to go from a +meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence to a discussion of its +plans with the leaders of the Conservative opposition; and to advise +with them upon the best way of rendering some of those plans nugatory. +Even during the Great War he did not cease from the cultivation of +political intimacies of this kind. Nor must we forget that Sir John +French, at the time the Commander-in-Chief of the British Armies +in France, was ready to go behind the back of the Government he +served to offer secret information to the military correspondent of a +Conservative newspaper; and the result of that betrayal of confidence +was the breakdown of the first Asquith Government in 1915. The proper +conduct of political life is clearly impossible, if the armed forces +of the state are free to take a definite part in its formation. No +one would endorse the Russian principle that a soldier’s quality is a +function of his agreement with the political faith of the government; +yet once relations are established between the politician and the Army +a movement towards this principle is inevitable. Sooner or later, in +this condition, the Army, like the Praetorian guard, determines the +personality of the state. When that occurs, no one can hope for the +enjoyment of political freedom. + +I turn, in the third place, to the view that industries which have a +vital impact on social life can restrain the right to strike in those +engaged in them. That is a peculiarly favoured doctrine at the present +time; some writers even use the analogy of the Army and Navy, and argue +that the principles applicable to these have a legitimate extension to +this field. Others, the eminent French jurist M. Duguit, for example, +take a similar view, but upon other grounds. They argue that vital +public service, transport, for instance, or electricity supply, derive +their whole meaning from continuity; to allow an interruption of them +is, therefore, to destroy the whole law of their being. + +I am as willing, I hope, as anyone to agree that an interruption of a +vital public service is undesirable, and that every possible step to +minimize the possibility of its occurrence should be taken. But I do +not think the denial of the right to strike obtains this end in any +of them; and I do not believe that the same considerations apply to +every sort of vital public service. It must, I think, make a difference +whether the industry is primarily operated for private profit or no; +for only in the latter case is its quality as both vital and public +fully recognized. No one, surely, can examine the record of the coal +industry either in England or in America and say that the motives +which underlie its ownership by private interest are compatible with +the view that an uninterrupted service to the community has been the +first object of the owners. There are several reasons of primary +importance for retaining the right to strike so long as private +ownership continues in this sphere. If, for instance, a steamship +company proposes to send out its ship under the conditions in which the +_Vestris_ of ill-fated memory sailed in the spring of 1929, I think the +crew would be justified in striking in the public interest. So, also, I +should argue that the Seamen’s Union would be justified in striking, to +see to it, if it could, that every vessel putting to sea carries with +it wireless equipment. Again, a body of miners might, in my judgment, +justifiably strike if they believed that some part of a pit to which +they were to be sent was in fact too dangerous for coal to be hewed +there without an alteration of the physical conditions of mining in +that particular place. I should, further, urge that a strike to secure +a national agreement for uniform conditions in a particular industry as +against a variety of local agreements was a justifiable enterprise if +that end could not be attained in any other way. + +My view, broadly, reduces itself to this. Where the vital industry is +in public hands, the conditions which should operate are those which +relate to government service in general where it is in private hands; +the state is, I think, justified in seeing to it that the danger of +dislocation is reduced to a minimum; but it is not justified in saying +that, in the event of a disagreement, the men shall always abide by the +results of compulsory arbitration. For, first of all, the men will not +always do so; their refusal, doubtless, will be exceptional, but there +will be instances in which it will occur. The famous munitions strikes +on the Clyde, and the South Wales Miners’ strike, during the war show +that this is the case. It is, I suggest, obvious folly to attempt +legislation which cannot be enforced at the critical point of urgency. +The business of the state, therefore, is not to prohibit, but to find +how best to make the use of the strike the final and not the first +instrument in conflict. + +This, I suggest, can be accomplished in two ways. It can be done, +first, by limiting the profits private ownership can make in any +industry of vital importance, either absolutely so that the owners +are debenture-holders merely, and not the residuary legatees of any +profit made, or relatively, as in a scheme like that laid down for the +gas companies of London. The state is then, I suggest, legitimately +entitled to argue that a curb on the liberty of the employer to +make what profit he can justifies a curb on the right to strike by +postulating the conditions under which alone it can become operative. +Those conditions are, I think, met by some such instrument as the +Canadian Industrial Disputes Investigation Act. Under its terms, we +should then have, at least, enforced public inquiry into the dispute, +and the consideration by both sides, as well as by the general +opinion of the community, of a reasoned attempt at a solution of the +difficulty. We respect freedom of association by leaving it at liberty +to insist that the proposed solution is unjust, while we protect the +public interest in continuity of service by insisting that the right to +strike shall not operate until the resources of conciliation have been +exhausted. + +I reject, therefore, M. Duguit’s notion that public interest in +continuity of service is a paramount consideration which should +overrule all others; and I see no reason to apply his vituperative +adjectives[37] to those who take a different view. It seems to me quite +definitely a denial of liberty for which no justification can be found +to say that men shall work on terms they think utterly unjust; and the +argument that, if they do not like those terms, they can find other +work, is, increasingly, without force in a community like our own. +The number of those in any society who have a genuine choice, at any +given time, of alternative occupations is notably small. An electrician +cannot suddenly become a barrister, as the latter can suddenly become +a journalist; and if it is a matter of hundreds, or even thousands of +men, the compulsion upon them to continue in the vocation for which +they have been trained is obvious. The community never gains, in the +long run, from work performed by men who labour under a sense of +injustice. That psychological feeling of frustration is poisonous to a +harmonious personality. As such, it is incompatible with that search +for freedom which I have urged is a condition of happiness. I cannot, +therefore, agree that the community is entitled, on any terms, to put +its convenience first, and the workers’ freedom afterwards. + +A final problem in this same realm remains. The trade union, it +is said, must obviously concern itself with all that touches the +industrial conditions of its members. But it is not entitled to a +general licence to roam all over the field of public activity. We +should resent it if a football club passed resolutions upon the foreign +policy of a government; and it is in the same way illegitimate for +a trade union to deal with matters outside its sphere. The state, +therefore, is entitled to define that sphere and to limit the +activities of trade unions to matters that come within it. + +But I have already sought to show that such a definition of spheres is, +in fact, impossible of achievement. Take, for instance, foreign policy. +You cannot say that trade unions ought not to concern themselves +with foreign policy since this is intimately bound up with economic +policy which, in turn, is the chief factor in the determination of the +conditions of employment. You cannot exclude any part of the economic +realm from the trade union sphere. I should agree that a trade union +ought not to concern itself, let us say, with the question of whether +the Pope was justified in making the Immaculate Conception a dogma of +the Roman Church; but the likelihood of a trade union acting in this +way is as small as that of a football club concerning itself with +foreign policy. We cannot legislate for the exceptional instance. Law +can only deal with normal habits susceptible of logical reduction to +well-established categories. When it goes further, it merely reveals +its own impotence. A trade union, moreover, is a living body; and +no law has ever been successful in coping with the growth of living +things by legal promulgations upon the fact of growth. Many matters are +regarded today as normally and naturally within the sphere of the trade +unions which a generation ago, even a decade ago, most men would have +insisted were in nowise their concern. In the American garment trade, +the union concerns itself, as a vital part of its function, with the +efficiency of the employers for whom its members work. A generation +ago, this would have been dismissed as “an insolent interference with +the rights of management”; today it is obvious that upon no other +terms can the function of the trade union be fulfilled. In 1914 the +unions would never have deemed it their business to concern themselves +with the bank rate and credit policy; today they realize that these +matters lie at the heart of their problems. Any such Procrustes’ bed of +definition as this principle suggests seems to me, therefore, a quite +wanton and foolish interference with freedom. + + +V + +Such a discussion of the relation of trade unionism to the state, +illustrates, I think, the general problem of the approach to freedom +of association in the political sphere. I have denied the right of +the state to control the internal life of such bodies; and I have +sought to show the limits of liberty where that life has ramifications +outside their membership. It is, I think, a good general rule that the +state should not interfere in this realm unless it must. Whenever, for +example, it has interfered with the claims of churches to lead their +own life, conflict has been the inevitable outcome. For in any meeting +of church and state, the latter will assert its paramountcy; and a +church has no alternative but to deny that assertion. For this reason +I believe that any attempt at partnership between them is bound to +result in injury to freedom somewhere. If, as in England, the Church +is formally established by the state, its dependency becomes obvious +as soon as it develops ideas of which the state does not approve; in +matters like marriage and divorce and education, the church has had +to surrender positions held for centuries to preserve the privileges +of establishment. It now appears that where there is disagreement in +an established church, the minority, on defeat, will not hesitate to +go beyond the organs which formally record the voice of the church, +in order to maintain doctrine or ritual which the church itself seeks +to change; and a legislative assembly most members of which are +either alien from the church, or without competence in its technical +problems, will find themselves defining its most sacred principles. +Such a church, quite obviously, is the mere creature of the state; it +sacrifices its spiritual birthright for a material mess of pottage. +Or, as in the concordat between Italy and the Papacy, there may be a +looser alliance of which the result is to deprive all non-Catholics of +their right to a secular state treating all religions equally, in the +realm of marriage and education. I cannot avoid the conclusion that in +this historic realm only the American principle of complete separation +and non-interference can produce freedom. Unless state and church +pursue an independent path, liberty is sacrificed; for either fusion or +partnership will, in fact, involve a conflict for supremacy. + +The remaining question I wish to discuss in this context is the right +of the state over associations the purpose of which is the overthrow +of the existing social order. What powers here ought the state to +possess? At what point can it interfere? Has it what may be termed a +preventive capacity, a right to prevent the development of associations +the natural tendency of which will be an attempt at such overthrow? +Or should its jurisdiction be limited to punishment for overt acts? +Obviously the quality of liberty depends very largely upon the powers +we give the state in this realm. I take it as elementary that the +state has a right to protect itself from attack. It must, as a state, +assume that its life is worth preserving. It must demand that changes +in its organization be the outcome of peaceful persuasion and not the +consequence of violent assault. A state must, therefore, assume that +its duty to maintain peace and security lies at the very root of its +existence. The liberty which associations enjoy must therefore be set +in the context that they cannot have a liberty to overthrow the state. +To that extent, any denial of freedom to them is justified. + +But what are the limits within which that denial must work. The world +today is littered with organizations that are denied a legal existence +and suppressed at any opportunity. The existence of a Communist party +is denied by Lithuanian law; the Peasants’ Party in Jugoslavia was +formally dissolved; Russian principle seems to be the imprisonment +or exile of members of any organization which can be suspected of +counter-revolutionary tendencies. We must, I think, begin with the +principle that a government is not entitled to suppress associations +the beliefs of which alone are subversive of the established order. +For, otherwise, persecution will be built, not on fact, but on +suspicion that facts may one day emerge, not on overt acts, but on +principles of faith which are in truth only dangerous when they are +expressed in practice. A society might be formed, for instance, to +discuss and propagate the principles of Tolstoyan anarchy; I do not +think any government has legitimate ground for interference with it. +The time for that interference comes only when, outside the specific +categories of peaceful persuasion, men have moved to action which +cannot logically be interpreted as other than a determination to +overthrow the social order. + +I agree, for instance, that a society of Communists which began to +teach its members military drill could legitimately be regarded as a +direct threat to peace. So, also, when a political party, the Ulster +Volunteers, for instance, or their opponents, the Nationalists, begin +to purchase munitions of war, interference by government is justified. +But I cannot see that a government is entitled to prevent a society +of Communists from preaching their doctrines either by speech or by +publication of the printed word. It is, I think, essential that, as +with the English law of treason, the government should be compelled +to prove the commission of some overt act which directly tends to +imminent rebellion in a court of law, and to bring two witnesses +at least to bear testimony to its commission. It ought not to be +sufficient for a government to say that since a particular party has +beliefs which include the right to violence and has elsewhere practised +violence, that its suppression is legitimate. Recently, again, Mr +Ghandi announced that if the British Government did not grant Dominion +Home Rule to India by the end of 1929, he and his followers would +practise civil disobedience such as a refusal to pay taxes. We do not +think that announcement would have justified the British Government in +imprisoning Mr Ghandi before the end of 1929 in order that he might be +prevented from accomplishing his threat at a later time. Or, once more, +Mr Arthur Ponsonby’s organization of men pledged to refuse military +service in the event of Great Britain going again to war ought not to +be suppressed because, if Great Britain did go to war, some hundred +thousand individuals would refuse to obey any military service Act +that would then be enacted. + +I am anxious, as you will see, to make it difficult for the government +of a state to attack an organization the views of which it happens +to dislike. In the light of the evidence, we can rest assured that, +unless we compel proof, in an ordinary court of law, that overt acts +have been committed, such attacks will be made. One has only to +remember the Treason Trials of 1794, where there was not a scintilla +of evidence against any one of the accused, or the follies enacted by +governments during the Great War, to see that this is the case. In +August of 1929, an Italian official actually drew public attention to +the undue circulation, as he deemed, of books by Chekov, Turgenev and +Tolstoy;[38] we can be sure that if a Society for the study of Russian +literature had then existed in Italy, the attention of the government +to its suppression would have been called. In the opening stages of +the Communist trial in Meerut, the counsel for the prosecution drew +attention not merely to the alleged offences of the accused, but +also to the actions of the Russian Communist leaders from 1917-20, +though it is difficult to see how either Indian or English Communists +could have been held responsible for them. The logic, indeed, of +habitual government suppression seems to be that abnormal opinion +is always dangerous because, if it is acted upon, the supremacy of +the law will be endangered. That is, of course, perfectly true. If +the Communist Party in England sought to initiate a rebellion, there +would be a threat to the supremacy of the law. But no one of common +sense believes today in a Communist menace in England, least of all, +perhaps, the Communists themselves. What can possibly be gained by an +attempt to suppress that philosophy by an imprisonment of its members +is quite beyond my understanding. I see no evidence to suggest that the +slightest good has been accomplished in America by all the legislation +against criminal syndicalism. Nor can I see that anything would have +been gained by the kind of prohibitions which the Lusk Committee, of +dubious memory, sought to put upon the statute-book. + +My point is that men are always entitled to form voluntary associations +for the expression of grievance, and for the propagation of ideas +which, as they think, will remedy what they believe to be wrong. They +are not entitled to move to the commission of acts which bring them +into conflict with the state. By acts I mean things like the planning +of Mussolini’s march on Rome, or the training of civilians as soldiers +by the Ulster Defence Council. Things like these the government may +legitimately attack because they have a clear and direct relation to +immediate violence, actual or prospective. But governments would do +well to remember, what they are too prone to forget, that they do not +remove grievance, however ill-conceived, by suppressing it. And if they +are allowed to associate violent opinion with actual violence, there +are few follies upon which they cannot be persuaded to embark. The +persecution of opinion grows by what it feeds on. Every social order +is ardently upheld by fanatics who are eager to make dissent from +their view a crime. The last thing that is desirable is to give them an +opportunity for the exercise of their fanaticism. + +It is, further, of great importance that all trials relating to these +offences should be held in the ordinary courts under the ordinary forms +of law. Experience makes it painfully clear that special tribunals are +simply special methods for securing a conviction. For the mere creation +of a special tribunal persuades the ordinary man that there is an _a +priori_ case against the accused, that the burden of proof lies upon +him rather than upon the government. Whatever we can do to safeguard +these trials from the introduction of passion is an obligation we owe +to liberty. However wrong or unwise we may think the actions of men so +accused, we have to remember that they represent, as a general rule, +the expression of a deep-felt resentment against social injustice. We +have to protect ourselves from protest which seeks deliberately to +dissolve the bonds of order. But it is our duty, too, to respect that +protest when it is sincerely made. And we cannot, therefore, permit +attack upon it because it represents ideas or experience alien from our +own. _De nobis fabula narretur_ is a maxim which every citizen should +recognize as the real lesson of political punishment. + +Implied in all this is a view of the place of voluntary associations +in the community the significance of which I do not wish to minimize. +I am, in fact, denying that they owe their existence to the state, or +that the latter is entitled, by means of its agents, to prescribe the +terms upon which they can live. The special place of the state in the +great society does not, in my judgment, give it an unlimited right +to effect that co-ordination which is its function on any terms it +pleases. The principles of a legitimate co-ordination bind the state +as much as they bind any other body of men. Each of us finds himself +part of a vast organization in the midst of which we must seek the +realization of desire. We cannot attain it alone. We have to find +others with kindred desires who will join hands with us to proclaim the +urgency of their realization. There is no other way to the attainment +of that end; and an attitude, therefore, like that of Rousseau, who +denied the legitimacy of any voluntary associations, fails altogether +to take account of the elementary facts of social life. Such bodies, +indeed, must run in the leading-strings of principle, but the question +of what that principle must be is not one the state alone is entitled +to make. For the latter is not justified in preventing the expression +of desire; it is justified only in preventing the realization of desire +by violent means. It must tolerate the expression of experience it +hates because it is there, as a state, to satisfy even the experience +it cannot understand. We must not, in fact, allow ourselves to fall +into the error of believing that opinion which is antagonistic to the +state-purpose is unworthy to survive. The state-purpose, like any +other, is expressed through the agency of men. They may misinterpret +it; they may, consciously or unconsciously, pervert it to their own +ends. To leave them free to settle the limits of free association would +be to leave them free to settle what criticism of their work they were +prepared to permit. That is a power which could not safely be entrusted +to any body of men who have ever operated as a government. + +For consider, once more, the historic record. The Roman suppression of +Christianity was built upon the belief that unity of religious belief +is the necessary condition of citizenship; later experience shows that +view to be without any substance. What in fact emerges from the history +of religious persecution is the lesson that the unity made by the +suppression of Nonconformity is the unity of stagnation. That was the +history of France under the repeal of the Edict of Nantes; it has been +the history of Spain ever since the sixteenth century; it is, indeed, +the history of any community, however rich and powerful, the rulers +of which assume that they know what constitute truth and right, what +opinions, therefore, they are entitled to prescribe. Any government +which attacks a body organized to promote some set of opinions which +may become dangerous to its safety may fairly be presumed to have +something to conceal. It is co-ordinating social life not to the end of +its greater fullness, but simply for the sake of co-ordination. + +But law, as I have insisted earlier, does not exist for the sake of +law. It is not entitled to obedience because it is legal, because, +that is, it proceeds from a source of reference formally competent to +enact it. Law exists for what it does; and its rightness is made by the +attitude adopted to it by those whose lives it proposes to shape. Since +bodies like the Communist Party are in fact an announcement that some +lives at least are shaped inadequately by the laws of a régime like +our own, suppression seems to me an indefensible way of meeting that +announcement. Force is never a reply to argument; and until argument +itself seeks force as the expression of its principle, it is only by +argument that it can justifiably be countered. + + +VI + +I turn to a very different phase of the subject. In every society +there are modes of conduct which, though not in themselves harmful, +offer an easy prospect of becoming so. It is therefore assumed by +many that it is the business of the state actively to discourage +such conduct, even to the point, if necessary, of making its most +innocuous expression illegal. No one is harmed, for instance, by a +moderate indulgence in alcoholic liquor; but since drunkenness is +harmful both to the individual and society, the state, it is said, is +justified in prohibiting the manufacture or sale of alcoholic liquor. +The same principle is urged of noxious drugs, of the use of tobacco, +of gambling. Sometimes, indeed, the principle is carried to an extreme +point and it is said that the state may prohibit any form of conduct, +Sunday games, for example, which a majority of the society finds +obnoxious. The claim to freedom, it is urged, may be denied in the +interest of a social view of good. + +I do not find it easy to accept any single principle that is obvious +and straightforward as applicable to the very complex problems we +encounter in this realm. Neither the fact that a mode of conduct may +be harmful in excess, nor the fact that, whether harmful or no, society +dislikes it, seems to me in itself a just ground for its suppression by +the law. The first case seems to me one for safeguards against excess; +care, for instance, may be taken to see to it that it is manufactured +at a limited strength, is sold only under careful restrictions, and +so on. The second case I find it impossible to decide as a general +principle, and apart from particular cases each of which is judged upon +its own merits. I am prepared, for example, to make it illegal to keep +a gaming-house; but I am not prepared to legislate against a social +game of bridge played for money in a private house. Conduct must be +punished or prohibited when it is harmful in itself or in the excess in +which it touches society before we ought to seek access to the clumsy +machinery of the law. + +For we cannot suppress all modes of conduct in which excess does harm. +In most cases, we have to leave the individual free to judge at what +point excess is a fact. Over-eating does great harm, but no one would +propose legislation against over-eating. Many motorists sacrifice their +lives to their motor-car, especially in America; but no one would +propose legislation against an undue indulgence in motoring. False +social standards result from our excessive adulation of film-stars and +athletes; but we should obviously be merely foolish if we legislated +against the publicity which makes for that excessive adulation. We +have always, I think, to study any proposed social prohibition in +terms of the object to which it is applied. We have to remember that +it always runs the risk of undermining character by a limitation +of responsibility. Men are made not by being safeguarded against +temptation but by being able to triumph over it. It would be impossible +to forbid the use of cheques because some people succumb to the habit +of embezzlement. There is a clear case for forbidding the sale of +noxious drugs like heroin or cocaine except under severe restrictions, +because it is clear that in themselves their consumption is bound to +harm the recipient. There is a clear case for insisting that persons, +even if they be passionate Christian Scientists, who are suffering from +an infectious disease like small-pox, shall be isolated until they are +cured; for anyone who goes about with small-pox inflicts direct and +measurable injury on other persons. But unless we can show that the +particular mode of conduct it is proposed to repress must necessarily +destroy the will-power of those who practise it, as is true of noxious +drugs, or directly and unquestionably injures the rest of society in +a measurable way, I think the method of prohibition an unwarranted +interference with freedom. + +I take this view on three grounds. I believe, first, that it is +socially most important to leave the individual as uninhibited as +possible in forming his own way of life, granted, of course, that he +is adult and mature. To shelter him at every point from experience +which, if carried to excess, may harm him is not only impossible, +but also dangerous. It makes him pass his life under the aegis of a +system of fear-sanctions which, for the most part, he will be quite +unable to sublimate, and the result will be that sense of continuous +frustration which is fatal to freedom. I must, in general, learn my +own limitations by experimentation with myself. I cannot pass my life +adjusting my conduct to standards and habits which represent the +experiments of other people. For the reasons which make the results of +particular experiments seem to them convincing, I may in my own case +regard as completely unsuccessful. To insist that their rule of life +is to be mine is, normally, to destroy my personality. It is to compel +me to live at the behest of others even where I can discover no ground +for the behest. Most people would agree that a statute compelling an +atheist to go to church was utterly foolish. His absence does not +affect the salvation of any other person. His presence there does him +no good because his mood is inevitably one of gnawing indignation at +being compelled to participate in ceremonies that have no meaning for +him. Either he will invent excuses which enable him to stay away, or +he will adopt an aggressive disbelief which makes him a source of +offence to the faithful. He loses, that is, the habit of truth, on +the one hand, or the capacity to give and take which makes for decent +citizenship, on the other. Both forms of behaviour do real injury to +him; neither produces an attitude of conviction. From the angle of +character, the only rules of conduct in this realm that work, are those +that are self-imposed. And these, so far as I know, are the invariable +outcome of experiment made by oneself with one’s own personality. + +My second reason is not less important. The power of law to define +modes of social conduct depends very largely upon its ability to +command a sentiment of general approval. What it seeks to do must +broadly commend itself, on rational grounds, to those over whose lives +its principles are to preside. Legislation which does not fulfil +this condition is always unsuccessful, and always has the result of +bringing the idea of law itself into contempt. For where a particular +statute is regarded as foolish or obnoxious by a considerable body of +persons, they will rejoice in breaking it. Illegal conduct becomes a +matter even of pride. It becomes a principle of conduct which gives +rise to special pleasure and peculiarly satisfies human vanity. No +one in London, so far as I know, regards the average policeman as an +unwarrantable attack on liberty; but it seems to be the case that +thousands of people in New York regard the prohibition agent in that +way. They wear a breach of the law as a badge of courage, like the +revolutionary in Czarist Russia or the suffragette in pre-war England; +and the imposition of penalties upon them arouses in them and their +friends a sense of angry injustice. Now I think it is an elementary +principle of penal psychology that you cannot make a crime of conduct +which people do not _a priori_ regard as criminal. Popular sentiment +approves a law against murder, and you can enforce that law. But +popular sentiment, in England at least, would not, in my judgment, +approve a law forbidding the manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquor; +and its chief result would be to direct the minds of thousands to the +problem of ways and means of evading the law. That is a habit which +grows upon those who indulge in it. It loosens all the principles of +conduct which make for social peace by making us think of the rules +under which we live as unjustifiable and oppressive. It forces social +effort quite unduly and unwisely in one direction. It persuades it to +think out mean and petty expedients for the enforcement of the law +in the same way as its subjects think out mean and petty expedients +for its evasion. The spectacle, for instance, of the Supreme Court +deciding that the American government is entitled to tap telephone +wires in order to obtain evidence of infraction of the Volstead Act is +not an encouraging one.[39] That way lies corruption and blackmail, +the kind of habits which, in England, we associate with names like +that of Oliver the spy,[40] in Russia with that of agents-provocateurs +like Azeff. Few things are more detrimental than this to the moral +equilibrium of a social order. + +Nor must we forget two other effects of attempted enforcement, both of +which are, I think, entirely evil. A government which is continually +flouted in its attempt at administration is bound to attempt even +greater severity. There will be an extension not only of the area +of offence, but also of the methods of coping with offence, and the +punishment to be inflicted where it occurs. The classic instance of +this result is the government of Geneva from the period of Calvin’s +dispensation. It does not result in the satisfactory enforcement of +the law, but in its wider evasion. Severity on one side is met by +brutality upon another; one might as well be hung for a sheep as +a lamb. And the disproportion between crime and punishment which +emerges draws the sympathy of the general population away from the +government to the offender. This is, I suggest, wholly bad for any +society. It makes the habits of government generally suspect to the +multitude. It creates martyrs unduly and unwisely. And this has, +of course, the consequence that it becomes ever more impossible to +enforce the law. Its irrationalism is advertised to the multitude. +It becomes inacceptable to an ever-increasing circle who, while they +may sympathize with its principle, are not prepared to acquiesce in +the price that has to be paid for its application. Not only, sooner or +later, does such legislation perish, but the habits to which it gives +rise persist, and are frequently carried over into realms where they +are still more undesirable. And the severity which a government is +tempted to practise makes it blind to wrong through becoming inured to +its consequences. When the British Government first met the weapon of +the hunger-strike it was baffled; later, it turned that weapon against +those who employed it by what was called the Cat and Mouse Act. Much of +this proceeding, where the suffragettes were concerned, had a comic, as +well as a tragic side. But the whole procedure had the serious result +of making the public expect that any hunger-strike would be a dramatic +battle between the government and its prisoner, in which the cause of +the imprisonment was lost sight of in the gamble of the procedure. +The public, accordingly, was not greatly moved by the hunger-striking +which took place during the Irish Revolution; and when Mr Lloyd George +left the Lord Mayor of Cork to die, people were more interested in +the circumstance of his death than in the vital question of whether +he should have been allowed to die. In all this realm, the denial of +liberty seems to result in the slow maximization of unhappiness. + +The second effect is also wholly bad. Whenever government interferes +to suppress some service which a considerable body of persons think +they require, when, also, the suppression is disapproved by a large +number of citizens, an industry to supply that service will come into +existence. Its ways will be devious, its charges will be high. It will +attract to its ranks many of the most undesirable elements in society. +It will form an army of lawbreakers whose habits are only too often +condoned by a large section of public opinion. That has been the case +with bootleggers in America and with night-clubs in London. And the +risks being great, the profits are high, the interests, consequently, +to be protected are correspondingly great. The history of these +adventures in England and America is one of organized immorality and +corruption. Condemnation by the law seems to have little or no effect +in dispelling its influence. Men and women attain power through its +means who normally would be shunned by most decent-minded persons. The +degree to which the police are corrupted by these influences is very +difficult to exaggerate. There is hardly a bribe too high for them to +pay. They are organizing, too, an adventure which stimulates every +sort of dubious instinct in perfectly ordinary people. Mr Babbitt +approaches his bootlegger, you will remember, in something like a +religious frame of mind. The night-club _habitué_ finds nothing quite +so exciting as the prospect of a raid; and he leaves his meretricious +surroundings with the sense that he knows the glory of danger and has +escaped the humdrum pettiness of suburbia. I think it bad for society +to make illegal conduct heroic. I think it still worse to make the +central figures in the drama of illegality powerful in the lives of +those to whom they purvey their service; men and women whose methods +of obtaining a living it does not occur to their clients to condemn. +Nor is it an answer to say that when the law does act, those clients +immediately desert the arrested offender which is proof that they +really disapprove. An enforcement which induces cowardice at the +critical moment in those who are _participes criminis_ does not seem to +me anything of which to be proud. + +My third reason is rather different in character. Every state contains +fussy and pedantic moralists who seek to use its machinery to insist +that these habits shall become the official standard of conduct in +the population. They are interested in prohibition and uniformity for +their own sake, and every success that they win only spurs them to +greater efforts. If they stop the sale of alcohol, they become ardent +for the limitation of the right to tobacco. They are anxious to control +the publication of books, the production of plays, women’s dress, the +laws governing sexual life, the use of leisure. They are terrified by +what they call immorality, by which they mean behaviour of which they +do not happen to approve. They are scandalized by the unconventional. +They luxuriate in its denunciation. They form committees and leagues +to prove the degeneracy of our times. They rush to the legislature +to compel action every time they discover some exceptional incident +of dubious conduct. To themselves, of course, they appear as little +Calvins saving the modern Geneva from the insidious invasion of +the Devil. No one, I suppose, can seriously doubt that men like Mr +Comstock regard themselves as the saviours of society. They have an +unlimited sense of a divinely appointed mission, and the whole of +their life is set in its perspective. They are the men who find in +_Candide_ the means of corrupting the mind of the community. They are +horrified by the nude in art. They think the performance of _Mrs. +Warren’s Profession_ the public profanation of the ideal. They regard +Darwin as an “infidel” whose works were an outrage upon God; and the +circumstances of Maxim Gorky’s married life seem to them to demand his +public excoriation. + +I know nothing more incompatible with the climate of mental freedom +than the inference of such people. They lack altogether a respect for +the dignity of human personality. They are utterly unable to see that +people who live differently think differently and that in so various +a civilization as ours absolute standards in these matters are out +of place. It is difficult to overestimate the price we pay for their +successes. Certainly no great art and no literature great in anything +save indignation can be produced where they have sway. It is not for +nothing that from the time of Calvin not a single work of ultimate +literary significance was produced by a resident of Geneva. It is +easy to understand why the grim excesses of Puritanism produced the +luxuriant license of the Restoration. These would be, if they could, +modern Inquisitors, without tolerance and without pity, thinking no +means unjustified if only their end can be attained. They are the kind +of people who drove Byron and Shelley into exile, and they remain +unable to see upon whom that exile reflects. Their pride is inordinate; +and human instincts are its chief victim. They are often ignorant, +usually dangerous, and invariably active. Since the friends of liberty +too often sleep, their unceasing vigilance not seldom meets with its +reward. To me, at least, they commit the ultimate blasphemy since they +seek to fashion man in their own image. + +I do sincerely plead that, especially in a democratic society, these +are grave dangers to freedom, against which we cannot too stringently +be upon our guard. Especially, I say, in a democratic society. For +there, the proportion of men zealous in the service of freedom, is +likely to be small unless great and dramatic issues are at stake. +Tyranny flows easily from the accumulation of petty restrictions. It +is important that each should have to prove its undeniable social +necessity before it is admitted within the fabric of the law. No +conduct should be inhibited unless it can be definitely shown that its +practice in a reasonable way can have no other result than to stunt +the development of personality. No opportunity should be offered for +the exercise of power unless by its application men are released from +trammels of which it is the necessary price of purchase. We ought +not to accept the easy gospel that liberty must prove that it is not +license. We ought rather to be critical of every proposal that asks +for a surrender of liberty. Its enemies, we must remember, never admit +that they are concerned to attack it; they always base their defence of +their purpose upon other grounds. But I could not, for myself, serve +principles which claimed to be just if their result was to make the +temple of freedom a prison for the impulses of men. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LIBERTY AND SOCIAL POWER + + +I + +In these pages, I have taken the view that liberty means that there is +no restraint upon those conditions which, in modern civilization, are +the necessary guarantees of individual happiness. There is no liberty +without freedom of speech. There is no liberty if special privilege +restricts the franchise to a portion of the community. There is no +liberty if a dominant opinion can control the social habits of the +rest without persuading the latter that there are reasonable grounds +for the control. For, as I have argued, since each man’s experience +is ultimately unique, he alone can fully appreciate its significance +himself; he can never be free save as he is able to act upon his own +private sense of that interpretation. Unfreedom means to him a denial +of his experience, a refusal on the part of organized society to +satisfy what he cannot help taking to be the lesson of his life. + +But no man, of course, stands alone. He lives with others and in +others. His liberty, therefore, is never absolute, since the conflict +of experience means the imposition of certain ways of behaviour upon +all of us lest conflict destroy peace. That imposition, broadly +speaking, is essential to liberty since it makes for peace; and peace +is the condition of continuity of liberty. The prohibitions, therefore, +that are imposed are an attempt to extract from the experience of +society certain principles of action by which, in their own interest, +men ought to be bound. We cannot, indeed, say that all the principles +a given government imposes are those it ought to impose. We can only +say that some principles, by being imposed, are bound up with the very +heart of freedom. + +That is the paradox of self-government. Certain restraints upon freedom +add to a man’s happiness. Partly, they save him from the difficulty of +going back to first principles for every step he has to take; they +summarize for him the past experience of the community. Partly, also, +they prevent every opposition of desire from resulting in conflict; +they thus assure him of security. In a sense, he is like a traveller +who reaches a sign-post pointing in many directions. Law helps him +by telling him where one, at least, will lead; and it invites him to +assume that its direction is also, or should be, his destination. +Clearly this will not always be the case. For it to be so, the end of +the law must be his as well, its experience must not contradict his +own. For that contradiction, as a rule, means punishment for him since, +at the end of the road he takes, if it is not the path of the law, he +will find a policeman waiting for him. We must, that is to say, find +ways of maximizing our agreement with the law. + +I sought earlier to show that this maximization can only take place +when the substance of law is continuously woven from the fabric of +a wide consent. Here I propose to inquire into certain essential +conditions which determine whether that consent can be obtained. +I propose to inquire, in other words, into that weird complex of +prejudice, judgment, interest, which we call public opinion and to seek +the terms of its adequate relationship to liberty. For if my argument +be valid that a man’s citizenship is the contribution of his instructed +judgment to the public good, and that right action, for him, is action +upon the basis of that judgment, clearly, the factor of instruction +is of decisive importance. Instructed judgment is considered and not +impulsive, ultimate and not immediate. It is a conclusion arrived at +after an attempt to penetrate behind the superficial appearance to +what is truth-seeming. It is a decision made after evidence has been +collected and weighed, distortion allowed for, prejudice discounted. +If, for instance, I am to oppose the State in a matter like military +service, I ought not to do so until I have rigorously examined the +facts upon which I build my principles. And, _mutatis mutandis_, that +is true of every aspect of social activity. The first urgency is +assurance that the facts upon which I base my action are valid. + +Now the world of facts which impinge upon each of us is difficult +and complex and enormous. None of us can know all of that world. A +large part of it, it may be in some context a fundamental part, we +have to take on trust from other persons. Obviously, it is of primary +importance that the things we take on trust should correspond with the +reality on which alone a right judgment can be made. My view of the +proper peace-terms that should be made with Germany will be one thing +if I believe that Germans, when at leisure, crucify innocent Belgian +citizens, rape their women, and cut off the breasts of their young +girls; and quite another thing if I believe that the Germans are rather +like other people, decent, kindly, respectable, wanting much the same +things in life as I do myself. My attitude to the nationalization of +the mines will obviously profoundly depend upon, first, the facts in +the mining industry itself, and, second, the facts about the operation +of nationalization in other fields. I cannot, in the vast majority of +the problems I have to decide, make my own inquiries into the facts. +Somewhere, sometime, I have to halt and say, “This man’s report, or +this paper’s account, is a thing I can trust.” + +It is because opinion is so vitally dependent upon the truthfulness of +facts that observers have come more and more to insist on the connexion +between liberty and the news.[41] For a judging public is unfree if +it has to judge not between competing theories of what an agreed set +of facts mean, but between competing distortions of what is, at the +outset, unedifying and invented mythology. Things like the incident +of the _Maine_, the Pekin Massacre which never occurred, the Zenoviev +letter, make an enormous difference to what Mr Lippmann has happily +termed my “stereotype” of the environment about which I have to make up +my mind. I bring already to its interpretation a mass of preconceptions +which tend to distort it. If there is prepared for me “evidence” +which has been distilled through the filter of a special interest +the distortion may become so complete as to make a rational judgment +impossible. The English journalist who invented the word “dole” has +built into the minds of innumerable people of the comfortable classes +a picture of the unemployed in England as a mass of work-shy persons, +comfortably lazy and anxious at all costs to live parasitically upon +the taxpayer; the proven fact that less than a fraction of one per cent +really avoids the effort to work is unable to penetrate the miasma of +that stereotype. The newspapers which belong to the Power Trust in +America, the subsidized press in Paris, the journals which must satisfy +Mussolini or suffer suppression, the government newspapers of Communist +Russia, these are all efforts to dictate an environment to the citizen +in order that the stereotype he forms may serve some interest their +owners, or controllers, are anxious to promote. Men may actually go out +to die for purposes in which they profoundly believe, though the cause +which, as they judge, embodies those purposes has not, in fact, the +remotest connexion with it. + +We have, in short, the difficulty that the control of news by special +interests may make prisoners of men who believe themselves to be free. +The Englishman who has to form an opinion about a miners’ strike is +not likely to be “free” in any sense to which meaning can be attached +if the facts which he encounters have been specially doctored in order +to make it as certain as possible that he conclude in favour of the +mine owners. A Chinaman who hears that the “Liberal” party in Rumania +has won a victory at the polls, an American who is informed that +London is governed by Municipal “Reformers”, approaches the discovery +of the facts with a body of preconceptions, derived from quite alien +experience, which will make a true judgment of those facts a very +complex matter. In the Conference of The Hague upon reparations in +August 1929, the Italian newspapers continued to paint Mr Snowden as +the Shylock withholding from Italy its due share, while the English +Press was equally unanimous in painting him as the protagonist against +a continental effort to make Great Britain the milch-cow of Europe. +The Italian, or the Englishman, who wished to obtain a just view of +the issues really at stake there, would have had to engage in arduous +researches into technical material about which he might lack competence +and for which he would certainly not easily find leisure. + +Let us remember, too, that our stereotype of the contemporary +environment is only the last phase, so to speak, of the problem. The +psychologists are unanimous in telling us how important for our future +are the impressions we gather in our early years. Clearly, from that +angle, the things we are taught, the mental habits of those who teach +us, are of quite primary urgency. It may make all the difference to the +intellectual climate of a people whether, for instance, the history +learned by children in schools is wide and generous, or parochial and +narrow, whether its teachers cultivate the sceptical mind, or the +positive mind. People who are imprisoned in dogmas in childhood will +have an agonizing struggle to escape from its stereotypes, and they +may well have been so taught that they either, after effort, succumb, +or do not even know that it is necessary to struggle at all. I do not +know how to emphasize sufficiently the quite inescapable importance to +freedom of the content of the educational process. + +Teach a child year in and year out that the American Constitution is +the ultimate embodiment of political wisdom and you increase tenfold +the difficulty of rational and necessary amendment by the generation +to which that child belongs. Set him under teachers like those of whom +Professor Harper tells us that seventy-seven per cent “contended that +one should never allow his own experience and reason to lead him in +ways that he knows are contrary to the teaching of the Bible”, and +fifty-one per cent that “our laws should forbid much of the radical +criticism that we often hear and read concerning the injustice of our +country and government”, and the openness of mind upon which reason +depends for its victories will be well-nigh unattainable.[42] Those +only who realize the importance of education will understand how a +Southern audience could go wild with anger over an account, in large +outline untrue, of German atrocities, and yet listen with indifference +to the description of a lynching in their own community so revolting in +its detail as to be unfit almost for transcription. And we must add to +the school influence in childhood, that of the home, the church, the +streets, in the terrible certainty that there are few impressions which +do not leave their trace. + +It is necessary, if I may so phrase it, to urge men to live +dangerously. To the degree that their happiness depends upon making +their decisions conform to the facts, they cannot avoid danger. It is +dangerous to leave a child in the hands of teachers who believe that +all experience and reason must be abandoned which does not square with +that recorded in the partly mythical annals of a primitive Semitic +tribe several thousand years ago, or who equate patriotism with +a fervid acceptance of the present political system. The adult is +endangering his happiness if he believes that truth is what Karl Marx +said, or Mussolini tells him, or the inferences of Mr Baldwin which the +latter has in turn drawn from material prepared for him by the Research +Department of the Conservative Central Office. Happiness depends upon +being able to approach with an open mind facts which have been prepared +by independent persons who have no interest in seeing that their +incidence is bent in some particular way. Anything else imprisons the +mind in dogmas which only work so long as that mind does not travel +beyond the narrow confines within which the dogmas work. Once it goes +beyond, unhappiness is the inevitable outcome. + +How are we to get independent fact-finding and the open mind? The +answer, of course, is the tragic one that there is no high-road to it. +Partly, it lies in the development of particular techniques, but, most +largely, it lies in the kind of educational methods we use, and this, +in its turn, in the purposes for which those methods are employed. +I entirely agree that a multiplication of independent fact-finding +agencies, as disinterested and impartial about wages and other social +conditions as a medical man in the making of a diagnosis, will take +us some distance.[43] Not, I think, very far; for between the finding +of facts by independent agencies and the driving of them home to the +public are interpolated just those factors of special interest which +are the enemies we confront. I agree, too, that freedom is partly +better served than when a great public organ falls into the hands of +one who, like C. P. Scott with his _Manchester Guardian_, determines +to make news and truth coincide. But men like Mr Scott are rare +enough to make reliance upon their emergence a very dubious ground of +hope. Nor need we deny that the growth of a professional spirit among +journalists, their organization into a profession with standards of +entrance and performance, will add greatly to the chances of solving +the problem. So, also, will the development of specialized journals +of opinion, and new inventions like the wireless. To some extent--not, +I think, a great extent--competitive fact-finding makes for truth. +Outrageous propaganda kills itself; men do not believe the “papers” +because they have found them lying at some point where the facts forced +themselves upon attention. + +And so, too, with a training for the open mind in schools. People may +come to see that where the quality of intelligence is concerned, the +second-rate, the dull, the incurious, the routineer, simply will not +do. They may be prepared to make education a profession sufficiently +well paid to attract the highest ability, and sufficiently honourable +to satisfy the keenest ambition. Even now we cannot over estimate +the influence exerted in his generation by a great teacher. Do what +we will, let him teach what he please, the minds with which he is in +contact will go along with his mind, they will learn his enthusiasms, +share his zest in inquiry. It may be Huxley in London, William James +in Harvard, Alain in Paris. Students who have lived with such men +are their spiritual children not less than those who have learned the +habits of a gentleman at Eton or a proper respect for the Emperor of +Japan in Tokio. And, equally, we may learn that a narrow patriotism +in history and politics has social results less admirable than a +quick scepticism built from the sense that our country has not always +been right, our institutional standards not invariably perfect. Our +governors may be willing to admit that one inference from the rebellion +of Washington is the possible legitimacy of rebellion, one inference +even from the new theology of Jesus, that we are sometimes justified in +the making of new theologies. It is even possible that the value of the +power to think may become so much more widely recognized, that we shall +not ask that those who are able creatively to teach this supreme art, +be dismissed because we dislike either what they teach or the opinions +they profess outside the practice of their profession. We may come to +insist upon security of tenure for the teacher even when his principles +of faith do not coincide with those for which we desire the triumph. + +Yet these possibilities do not, in themselves, seem to me to confer a +right to optimism if they stand alone. If it pays to spread false news, +let us be sure that false news will be spread. If some special interest +gains by corrupting the facts, so far as it can, the facts will be +corrupted. If a poor educational system strengthens the existing +foundations of power, it will tend to remain poor; if its extension is +costly, those who are to bear the cost will find good reason either not +to extend it, or to proceed at such a snail’s pace that the new way +has no chance of affecting mankind except in terms of geological time. +Our difficulty is the twofold one that propaganda can produce immense +results in a brief space of time and that creative educational change +takes something like a generation before its results are manifest upon +a wide scale. The forces at work to prevent the emergence of truth, the +forces, also, which have every reason to dislike the development of the +mind which seeks for truth, are many and concentrated and powerful. +They do not want the general reporting of experience, but only of that +experience which favours themselves. They do not want the general +population so trained as to prize truth, but only so trained that they +believe whatever they read. In our own day it would not be an unfair +description of education to define it as the art which teaches men to +be deceived by the printed word. Those who profit by that deception +are, at the moment, the masters of society. + +For we must remember that in these matters we have to concern ourselves +with short-term values and not long-term values. We do not legislate +for some conceivable Utopia to be born in some unimaginable time, but +for the kind of world we know ourselves, for lives like our own lives. +The freedom we ask we have to make. Every postponement we accept, every +failure before which we are dumb, only consolidates the forces that +are hostile to freedom. They themselves realize this well enough. They +have, in the past, fought every step on every road to freedom because +they have seen that the accumulation of small concessions will, in +the end, be their defeat. Everywhere they have been guilty of definite +error, or wrong, they have denied the error or wrong, lest it upset +faith in their own right to power. Not the least powerful to silence, +you will recollect, which persuaded even those who thought Sacco and +Vanzetti innocent was their fear that proof of that innocence might +disturb popular faith in the Massachusetts Courts. The same was true +in the Dreyfus case. The same, on a lesser plane, was true of Mr +Winston Churchill when he sought to deceive the House of Commons over +the treatment of Lady Constance Lytton in prison.[44] Those in power +will always deny freedom if, thereby, they can conceal wrong. And any +successful denial only makes its repetition easier. Had California +released Mooney in 1916, when the world knew he was innocent, it would +have been easier for Massachusetts to have acted justly ten years +later. The will to freedom, like the will to power, is a habit, and it +perishes of atrophy. + +The inference I would draw is the quite basic one that in any society +men only have an equal interest in freedom when they have an equal +interest in its results. Where those results are already possessed by +some, they seldom have the imagination to see the consequence of their +denial to others. They will persuade themselves that those others are +contented with their lot, or made differently in nature, so that they +are unfit to enjoy what others possess. There is no myth we are not +capable of inventing to lull our conscience. We see the futility of +action on our part, because we are so unimportant. We see that it would +be dangerous in this particular case, because we have an influence +that, in other cases, might be exerted to useful purpose. We do not +think the time has come for action. We think that action here might +lead to other and quite unjustifiable demands. We would have associated +ourselves with the demand, but those who are making it, or the way in +which it is being made, unfortunately renders this impossible. Life is +so complex and tangled and full, that those who desire to abstain from +the battle for freedom can always find ample excuse. The workman may be +afraid for his job; Babbitt may shrink from being shunned by the group +whose fellowship is his life; it may be the handful of silver, the +riband for the coat, the love of power, the loathing of what freedom +may bring. Whatever the motive of abstention, let us remember that men +think differently who live differently, and that, as they think, so +they build principles of action to remedy what, in their lives, they +find bitter or unjust, to preserve what they find pleasant or right. + +We cannot, of course, remedy all experience which makes for a sense +of bitterness or injustice. Things like the betrayal of friendship +are, only too often, beyond the power of organization to affect. But +the sense of bitterness or injustice that comes from bad housing, low +wages, or the denial of an adequate political status, these we are able +to remedy by social action. Or, rather, we are free to move to their +remedy, if we have an equal interest in doing so. If our interest is +unequal, our sense of a need to share with others in action will be +small. Other things will seem more significant or more urgent; and +the need itself will shrink as it obtrudes. The less we live in the +experience of our neighbours, the less shall we feel wrong in the +denial of their wants. Trade unionists appreciate a demand for higher +wages more keenly than employers: the wealthy rentier reads of a strike +in the cotton trade as a newspaper incident, of a railway dispute, +whatever its grounds, as a threat to the community. The sense of +solidarity comes only when the result of joint action impinges equally +on the common life. + +We are in the difficulty that every step we take towards freedom is a +step towards the equalization of privileges now held unequally. Those +who hold them are not anxious to abandon what they entail; sometimes +they can even persuade themselves that the well-being of society +depends upon a refusal to surrender them. For them, therefore, the +honest publication of facts, the making of free minds, are simply +paths to disaster. Why should they surrender their weapons of defence? +Why, the more, when many of them do not even suspect that they fight +with poisoned weapons? To explain to a loyal Roman Catholic that he +should tell his children that there is grave reason to deny the truth +of all he believes is to invite him to shatter the foundation upon +which he has built his life. To suggest to the average citizen who +took part in the Great War that his school-books should abandon the +legend that his particular state entered it with the whole-souled +motive of serving justice would appear scandalous simply because he +is honestly unconscious of any other motive. To urge even upon the +public-spirited heir to a great estate the possible duty of acting upon +the principle of Mill’s argument about the laws of inheritance is, at +the best, an adventure in the lesser hope. There was good reason for +the unpopularity of the Socratic temper in Athens. + + +II + +I conclude, therefore, that whatever our mechanisms and institutions, +liberty can hope to emerge and to be maintained in a society where +men are, broadly speaking, equally interested in its emergency and +its maintenance. I accept the insight Harrington had when he insisted +that the distribution of economic power in a state will control the +distribution of its political power. I think James Madison was right +when he argued that property is the only durable source of faction. I +think the perception of the early socialists entirely justified when +they urged that a society divided into a small number of rich, and +a large number of poor persons, will be a society of exploiters and +exploited. I cannot believe that, in such an atmosphere, liberty will +be a matter of serious concern to the possessors of power. + +What will concern them is how they can best maintain their power. They +will permit anything save the laying of hands upon the ark of their +covenant. They will allow freedom in inessentials; but when the pith of +freedom is attack upon their monopoly they will define it as sedition +or blasphemy. For if the form of social organization is a pyramid, +men are bound to struggle towards its apex. In a society of economic +unequals, gross unequalities make conflict inherent in its foundations. +The possession of wealth means the possession of so much that makes for +a happy life, beautiful physical surroundings, leisure to read and to +think, safeguards against the insecurity of the morrow. It is, I think, +inevitable that those to whom these things are denied should envy those +who possess them. It is inevitable, also, that envy should be the nurse +of hate and faction. Those who are so denied struggle to attain, those +who possess struggle to preserve. Justice becomes the rule of the +stronger, liberty the law which the stronger allow. The freedom that +the poor desire in a society such as this is the freedom to enjoy the +things their rulers enjoy. The penumbra of freedom, its purpose and +its life, is the movement for equality. + +And it is equality that is decried by those who rule. It means +parting with the exercise of power and all the pleasures that go with +its exercise. It means that their wants do not define the ends of +production, their standards do not set the objects of consideration, +their right to determine the equilibrium of social forces is no longer +recognized. Equality, in fact, is a denial of the philosophy of life +which is bred into their bones by their way of living. It does not +seem to me remarkable that they should fight against this denial. +Who of us, on these terms, but would find it difficult to accept as +valid experience which contradicts our experiences, a system of values +which attempts the transvaluation of our own? Who of us but would not +feel that a freedom which seeks radical alteration of the contours of +existence is perverse and dangerous and worthy only to be suppressed? +The Pagan felt that of the Christian, the Catholic of the Protestant, +the landowner of the merchant. The new power which seeks its place in +the sun is inevitably suspected by the old with whom it claims equal +rights. + +The equality will be denied, and, with it, the freedom to claim +equality. Inevitably, also, the right to freedom will be maintained, +and the two powers will, sooner or later, mass their forces for battle. +I know no instance in history in which men in possession of power +have voluntarily abdicated its privileges. They say that reason and +justice prevail; but they mean their reason and their justice. They are +prepared to coerce in the hope of success, and they are prepared to die +fighting rather than to surrender. It is the result of such a way of +life that the ideal of freedom is inapplicable to matters upon which +there is urgent difference of opinion between the rulers and their +subjects. It is impossible for reason to prevail if men are prepared to +fight about the consequences of its victory. And if they are prepared +to fight there is no room in the society for freedom since this is +incompatible with habits of violence. + +Any society, in fact, the fruits of whose economic operations are +unequally distributed will be compelled to deny freedom as the law +of its being; and the same will be true of any society in process +of forcible transition from one way of life to another. Cromwellian +England, Revolutionary France, Communist Russia, Fascist Italy, each +of these, of set purpose, made an end of the pretence that freedom was +a justifiable object of desire. In each, it was proposed to maintain +some particular form of social organization at any cost; to inquire +into the cost might result in doubt of the value of the effort; and +the value of that freedom which releases reason was therefore denied. +A revolutionary state, of course, makes the position peculiarly clear. +But it is not merely true of the revolutionary state. + +In England, or France, or Germany, there is no freedom where the +fundamentals of the society are called into question, if their rulers +think that this may cause danger to those questions. The government +may decide that William Godwin is innocuous; but it will not hesitate +to convict Tom Paine--in truth far less drastic--of high treason. The +cause of this attitude is, I think, beyond discussion. If freedom seeks +to alter fundamentals, freedom must go; and freedom can hardly help +but concentrate on fundamentals in a society distinguished by economic +inequality. I do not need to point out to you the extraordinary +timidity of society before subversive discussion of property-rights, +nor to insist upon the complicated legal precautions that are taken +for its defence. You have only to examine the attitude in which Labour +combinations are approached by those who possess economic power, as +instanced, for example, by the use of the injunction by American +judges,[45] to realize that the main purpose of limitations on freedom +is to prevent undue encroachments upon the existing inequalities. +We announce that we are open to conviction in matters of social +arrangement. But we take the most careful steps to see that our +convictions are not likely to be overthrown. + +For the chance that reason will prevail in an unequal society is +necessarily small. It is always at a disadvantage compared with +interest, for, to the latter, especially in property matters, passion +is harnessed, and in the presence of passion people become blind to +truth. They see what they want to see, and they select as truth that +which serves the purpose they desire to see prevail. The preparation +of news for the making of opinion is, indeed, extraordinarily like the +old religious controversy in which men hurled text and counter-text +at one another. The real problem was one of proportions; but the +protagonists altered the proportions that the material might the better +serve their cause. Some years ago, a Labour Delegation returned from +Russia with a statement about its character from Peter Kropotkin. A +leading capitalist newspaper in London printed all those parts of it +which attacked the Russian régime; and the leading Labour newspaper +printed those parts of it favourable to the Bolshevik experiment. The +readers of the first were, therefore, satisfied with the knowledge +that an eminent anarchist heartily disliked Bolshevism; and the +readers of the second were heartened by discovering that so eminent a +friend of freedom was nevertheless prepared to support a Dictatorship +as favourable to freedom. You will remember that Luther and Calvin were +always prepared to abide by the plain words of Scripture; but each was +careful, at critical points, to insist that his own interpretation +alone possessed validity. In that atmosphere, a solution which strikes +opposing controversialists as just is not, at least easily, to be found. + +This, I suggest, is the kind of environment any plea for freedom +must meet in the modern state. Discussion of inessentials can be +ample and luxurious; discussion of essentials will always, where it +touches the heart of existing social arrangements, meet at least with +difficulty and probably with attack. It will find it extraordinarily +hard to organize supporters for its view, if this opposes the will of +those in authority. In wartime, any plea for reasonableness is at a +discount; and it was at a discount in England during the general +strike when the government sought at once for the conditions of a +belligerent atmosphere. Attack an interest, in a word, and you arouse +passion; arouse passion, especially where property is concerned, and +the technique of _raison d’état_ will sooner or later be invoked. But +liberty and _raison d’état_ are mutually incompatible for the simple +reason that _raison d’état_ is a principle which seeks, _a priori_, to +exclude rational discussion from the field. It seeks neither truth nor +justice, but surrender. + +It is a technique, I think, which almost always comes into play when +dangerous opinion is challenged by the state. A good instance of this +is afforded by the trial of the British Communists in 1925. No one +could seriously claim that their effort constituted a serious menace +to the state, for they were a handful among millions, and there was +not even evidence that their propaganda met with any success. Yet +their condemnation was a foregone conclusion, granted the terms of the +indictment. And the habits of power were interestingly illustrated by +the judge who presided over the trial. He had conducted the case with +quite scrupulous fairness, and had shown no leaning to one side or the +other until the jury had rendered its verdict. He then made an offer +to the defendants that if they would abandon their belief in Communism +he would adjust the sentence in the light of that abandonment. He made +the offer, I do not doubt, in the utmost good faith and an entirely +sincere conviction that Communist opinions are morally wicked. But +that attitude was precisely similar to the Roman offer to the early +Christians: they could avoid the arena if they would offer but a +pinch of incense on the pagan altar. It was precisely similar to the +willingness of the Inquisitor to mitigate his sentence where there +is confession of heresy and repentance. Mr Justice Swift seemed to +have no realization at all that the defendants were Communists in the +light of an experience of social life which, for them, was as vivid +and compelling as the Christian revelation to its early adherents; +that the offer he made to them was mitigation of punishment in return +for the sacrifice of their sincerity; that the state, for him, was +Hobbes’ “moral God” at whose altar they must do reverence. His views, +of course, were the natural expression of his own experience of life, +and, without doubt, sincerely held; but they implied an inability +imaginatively to understand alien experience which is pathetic in the +limitation it involves. And perhaps the supreme irony in the situation +was the fact that to be tried as Communists was, for the defendants, +perhaps the supreme test of truth to which their faith could be +submitted. + +When Plato, in the _Laws_, set out a revised version of his ideal +policy for application to the real world about him, he surrendered his +demand for the complete communism which had distinguished his Utopia. +But he was still emphatic enough about the need for equality to lay +it down that no member of his state should possess property more than +four times in amount of that owned by the poorest citizens. The ground +of that drastic conclusion was quite clear in his mind. Great economic +inequalities are, as he saw, incompatible with a unity of interest in +the community. There is no common basis upon which citizens can move to +the attainment of kindred ideals. The lives of the few are too remote +from the lives of the many for disagreement about social questions to +be possible in terms of peace, if the ultimate organization of the +society is not to be changed. The remoteness means that the few will +always fear the invasion of their privilege, and the many will envy +them its possession. It is not only, as I have said, that men think +differently who live differently; it is, essentially, that men think +antagonistically who live so differently. That antagonism is bound to +result in violence unless the domination of the many by the few is +almost complete, or is tempered by so continuous a flow of concession +as results, in the end, in the effective mitigation of the inequality. +There cannot, in a word, be democratic government without equality; and +without democratic government there cannot be freedom. + +For the real meaning of democratic government is the equal weighing +of individual claims to happiness by social institutions. A society +built upon economic inequality cannot attempt that sort of measure. +Consciously or unconsciously, it starts from the assumption that there +is a greater right in some claims than in others. It cannot be said +that response to claims is made in terms of justice. The nature of +economic inequality is a compulsion to respond to effective demand, +and this pays no regard to science on the one hand, or to need upon +the other. It thinks only of the presence of purchasing power and not +of its connotation in terms of social purpose. The whole productive +scheme is thereby tilted to the favour of those who possess the power +to make their wants effective. There is cake for some before there is +bread for all. The palace neighbours the slum. And those who find that +their wants do not secure attention are, inevitably, tempted to an +examination of the moral foundations of such a society. Their interest +drives them to demand its reconstruction in terms of those wants. +Liberty means, in such a context, the power continuously to exercise +initiative in social reconstruction. The whole ethos which surrounds +their effort is that of equality. They search for freedom for no other +end but this. + +I do not need to remind you that most observers who have sought +to estimate the significance of the democratic movement have seen +that equality is the key to its understanding. That was the case +with Tocqueville; it was the case with John Stuart Mill; and, in a +famous lecture which reads now as though it was the utterance of a +prophet,[46] it was the case, also, with Matthew Arnold. Broadly, their +insight converged towards a recognition of three important things. They +realized, first, that in any society where power is gravely unequal, +the character and intelligence of those at the base is unnaturally +depressed. The community loses by this in two ways. The energy and +capacity of which it might make use are not released for action; and +the concentration of effective power in a few hands means that the +wishes, opinions, needs, of the majority do not receive sufficient +consideration. An aristocracy, whether of birth, or creed, or wealth, +always suffers from self-sufficiency. It is inaccessible to ideals +which originate from without itself. It tends to think them unimportant +if they are urged tactfully, and dangerous if they are urged with +vigour. It is so accustomed to the idea of its own superiority, that it +is resentful of considerations which inquire into the validity of that +assumption. It may be generous, charitable, kind; but the surrounding +principle of those qualities is always their exercise as of grace and +not in justice. An aristocracy, in a word, is the prisoner of its own +power, and that the most completely when men begin to question its +authority. It does not know how to act wisely at the very moment when +it most requires wise action. + +It is not only that any aristocracy becomes unduly absorbed in the +consideration of its own interests. Its depression of the people +has the dangerous effect of persuading the latter of its necessary +inferiority. It is unable to carry on its own affairs with order +and intelligence. It does not know how to represent its wants with +decision. It develops a sense of indignation because its interests +are neglected; but it does not know how to attach its indignation to +the right objects or, when so attached, how to remedy the ills from +which it suffers. An aristocracy, in a word, deprives its subjects of +character and responsibility; and as the revolutions of 1848 so clearly +demonstrated, while they can destroy, they have never been taught +how to create. The success of the Puritan Rebellion and the American +Revolution was built upon the fact that, in each case, the exercise +of power had been a habit of the general population; in the one case +in the management of Nonconformist Churches, in the other in the +governance of local legislatures and township meetings. In each case, a +blind government confronted men who knew how to formulate their wants, +and to organize their attainment. But, in general, aristocracies do +not provide their subjects with this opportunity. Their own effort is +substituted for popular effort, their own will for the popular will. +The development of the total resources at their disposal is postponed +to the preservation of their interest and convenience. They dwarf the +masses that they may the better contemplate the stateliness of their +own state. But that, in the end, always means that the vital power of +the people is absent at the moment when it is most required. + +The third weakness of aristocracies is their inevitable impermanence. +There is no method known of confining character and energy and ability +to their own ranks. These, where they emerge in the people, will always +seek the means of their satisfaction. From this angle, few things are +so significant as the history of the British Labour Party. It rose +to power largely because there was no room in the leadership of the +historic parties for self-made men who had not sought success either as +lawyers or as business men. The result was that the knowledge at the +disposal of Liberals and Conservatives, the significant experience upon +which they could draw for the making of their policy, was always more +narrow than the area of the problems they had to meet. The lives of +the typical Labour leaders of the second generation, Keir Hardie, Mr +Ramsay MacDonald, Mr Arthur Henderson, invariably show a period where +the regretful decision has to be taken against further co-operation +with a party which cannot see the needs they see, which does not +desire service to the ideals they seek to serve.[47] And men such as +these make articulate in the minds of all who have a sense that their +interests are neglected not only the fact of negligence, the demand, +therefore, for satisfaction, but also the search for the principles +whereby satisfaction can be attained. Their insight into an emphasis +to which little attention has been paid grows by the volume of the +experience they encounter into a movement; and those who have permitted +the interest to be neglected find that the old battle-cries no longer +attract its allegiance even when they are given new form. + +It is curious to note that not even the impact of defeat gives this +lesson its proper perspective to the defeated. English Liberalism has +suffered eclipse because, broadly speaking, it was unable to discover +an industrial philosophy suitable to the wants of the new electorate. +It served admirably the requirements of the manufacturer and the +shopkeeper who were enfranchised in 1832. It gave them freedom of +trade, liberty of contract and full religious toleration. But it never +understood either the fact of trade unionism or the philosophy of +trade unionism. Its attitude to citizenship was atomic in character. +It saw the community as a government on the one side, and a mass of +discrete individuals on the other. It assumed that each of these, given +liberation from the special privilege of the _ancien régime_, had the +full means of happiness at his disposal; it accepted, in a word, the +principles of Benthamite radicalism as absolute. But its error was not +to see that the community is not merely a mass of discrete individuals. +Jones is not merely Jones, but also a miner, a railwayman, a cotton +operative, an engineer. As one of these, he has interests to be jointly +promoted and jointly realized. A philosophy of politics that is to +work must find a full place in the state for organized workers to whom +freedom in the industrial sphere is, in its fullest implications, +as urgent and as imperative as freedom in the sphere of politics or +religion. + +The Liberal Party did not see this until it was too late. Built largely +on the support of the Nonconformist business man, the interests it +understood were essentially his interests; and to recognize the +implications of trade unionism, as Keir Hardie and his colleagues +did, was to invade the interests upon which it was able to count for +allegiance. It was forced, obviously unwillingly, into concessions +like the Trades Disputes Act of 1906; but its policy, as the detailed +history of the process of social legislation from 1906 to 1914 +makes clear was, so far as it could, to mitigate social inequality +by recognition of individual claims, and to build machinery for +their satisfaction which continued to neglect the fact of trade +unionism. When, after the war, the remarkable growth of the Labour +Party showed how vast was the decline of the Liberal hold upon the +working-classes, the Liberal leaders were driven, by the need of +self-preservation, to the invention of industrial principles likely to +prove attractive to trade unionists. But these wore the air of being +produced for the occasion; and they did not fit into the character +of Liberal Leadership. For the latter was quite unable to attract to +its ranks either working-men candidates or trade union support; and +the emphatic declaration of a Liberal politician that his party could +not join the ranks of Labour because the latter was built upon the +trade unions showed how unreal was the body of industrial principles +which Liberalism had developed.[48] It remained an atomic philosophy +applicable to a world in which employer and worker confronted each +other, as individuals, on equal terms. The assumption was unjustified; +and the way lay open for the consolidation by Labour of its growing +hold upon the workers. Liberalism remained a middle-class outlook, +admirable in its exposition of basic principle, but incapable of +adjusting principle to a medium with which its supporters were largely +unacquainted. + +In an interesting passage[49] Lord Balfour has drawn attention to the +fact that the success of the British Constitution in the nineteenth +century--it is worth adding the general success of representative +government--was built upon an agreement between parties in the state +upon fundamental principles. There was, that is, a kindred outlook upon +large issues; and since fighting was confined to matters of comparative +detail, men were prepared to let reason have its sway in the realm of +conflict. For it is significant that in the one realm where depth of +feeling was passionate--Irish home rule--events moved rapidly to the +test of the sword; and the settlement made was effected by violence and +not by reason. That was the essence of the Russian problem. The effort +to transform a dull and corrupt autocracy into a quasi-constitutional +system came, like the efforts of Louis XVI at reform, too late to +affect men who had already passed beyond any possibility of compromise +with the idea of monarchical power. The concessions which the autocracy +was prepared to offer did not touch the fringe of what the opposition +regarded as nominal. Nor was that all. Post-war Russia illustrated +admirably the truth of Mill’s insistence that “a state which dwarfs its +men in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands, +even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great +thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery +to which it has sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it +nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine +might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.”[50] + + +III + +I conclude, therefore, that the factor of consent is not likely +effectively to operate in any society where there is a serious +unequality of economic condition; and I assume, further, that the +absence of such consent is, in the long run, fatal to social peace. +I do not deny that men will long postpone their protest against that +absence; there are few wrongs to which men do not become habituated +by experience, few, therefore, which, after the long passage of time, +they will not be persuaded are inherent in nature. But such habituation +is never permanent; sooner or later someone arises, like the child in +the fairy-story, to point out that in fact the emperor is naked. If +attention is drawn to some need which is widely experienced, the denial +that the need is real by those who have not experienced it, will not +prove effective. Workingmen never found it easy to believe that long +hours of work or low wages were the essential conditions of industrial +leadership in the nineteenth century. Few Nonconformists sympathized +with Burke’s attitude to parliamentary reform. Few American trade +unionists see in the use of the injunction by the courts a method of +preserving social peace in terms of a strict impartiality between +capital and labour. Opponents of Mussolini are not moved by his plea +that he thinks only of the well-being of Italy. Russian working-men +have probably been often tempted to the view that their Bolshevik +masters mistake Communist dogma for social truth. + +To satisfy experience, in short, we must weigh experience as we move +to the making of decisions. We cannot rule it out because it is not +ours; that is the error of autocracy which insists upon the _a priori_ +rightness of its own experience. We have to regard experience as +significant in itself and seek to come to terms with it. If it is +mistaken in the implications it assumes, we have to convince it of +its error. Our business, hard as it is, is the discovery of that need +in the experience which must be satisfied if successful government is +to be possible. For successful government is simply government which +satisfies the largest possible area of demand. It is not mysterious +or divine. It is simply a body of men making decisions which, in the +long run, live or die by what other men think of them. Their validity +as decisions is in that thought if only because its content is born +of what the decisions mean to ourselves. All of us are inescapably +citizens, and, at some point, therefore, the privacy in which we seek +escape from our obligation as citizens, will seem unsatisfying. A +crisis comes which touches us; a decision is made which contradicts +something we happen to have experienced as fundamental; we then judge +our rulers by the fact of that denial, and act as we think its terms +warrant. + +This, as I think, is the real pathway to an answer to the kind of +problem which students of public opinion like Mr Lippmann have posed. +They are right in their analysis of the constituent factors in its +making, especially in their emphasis of the difficulties we confront +in making that opinion correspond to the realities it must satisfy. +They are right, further, I believe, in their emphasis upon the vital +connexion between truthful news and liberty; nor do I doubt that +some of the remedies they propose would have the valuable effect +of increasing the degree of truth in the news. But all of them, I +think, miss out the vital fact that truthful news is dangerous to a +society the actual contours of which its presentation might seriously +change. It would have been a different war in 1914 without propaganda; +the history of political parties would have been different if the +principles they announced were measured by their application to total +and not to partial experience. It only pays to print the truth when +the interest responsible for publication is not prejudiced thereby. My +point has been that in an unequal society that prejudice is inevitable. + +And that prejudice, in its basic implications, is incompatible with +liberty. For what it does is to emphasize some experience at the +expense of other experience, to enable one need to make its way while +another need remains unknown. The policy of censorship during the war +meant that everyone anxious for its prosecution to the end had ample +opportunity to express his view; the pacifist, the Christian, the +believer in peace by negotiation, found it extraordinarily difficult +to speak. Clamant opinion was, as always, taken for actual opinion; +and policy, particularly in the making of peace, was built upon the +assumption that no other opinion existed save that which made itself +heard. To any observer with a grain of common sense, it was obvious +that no treaty would be possible of application save as it impressed +Germany as just, and that where, when the glow of war had gone, Germany +resisted its application, a public opinion would not easily be found to +demand the imposition of penalties. Nothing is more dangerous in the +taking of decisions than to assume that because people are silent, they +have nothing to say. + +Yet that is the underlying assumption of much of our social life. We +emphasize opinion which satisfies those in power, we discount opinion +which runs counter to it; above all we take it for granted that silence +and consent are one and the same thing. Every one of these attitudes +is a blunder; especially is it a blunder, for which we pay heavily, +in matters of social importance. It is extraordinarily dangerous, for +example, to assume that English public opinion disapproved the General +Strike because Mayfair was indignant, the _Morning Post_ hysterical, +and Sir John Simon coldly hostile; for Mayfair and the _Morning Post_, +even with Sir John Simon, do not constitute English public opinion. Our +difficulty is that they will be taken to constitute it when it is to +the interest of government to do so. Such an equation is serious, and +may well be fatal, to any who think of social peace as a thing really +worth while to preserve. + +We must remember, too, what goes along with a process of this kind. +Those who lament the ignorance of public opinion too often forget +that in an unequal society it is necessary to repress the expression +of individuality. Every attempt at such expression is an attempt +at the equalization of social conditions; it is an attempt to make +myself count, an insistence on my claim, an assertion of my right +to be treated as equal in that claim with other persons. To admit +that I ought to have that freedom is to deny that the inequality +upon which society rests is valid. And, accordingly, every sort of +devious method, conscious and unconscious, is adopted to prevent my +assertiveness. The most subtle, perhaps, is the denial of adequate +educational facilities; for what, in fact, that does is to prevent me +from knowing how to formulate my claim effectively, and unattention +is the price I have to pay for my ineffectiveness. My claim, then, +however real or just, because it is clumsily presented fails to secure +the consideration it deserves. Or, again, the view of a group may be +simply discounted where it fails to please the holders of power. We +are impressed, for instance, when we hear that a government, say that +of Mr Lloyd George, is solid in its determination not to give way to +the miners; we assume a careful weighing of the facts and a decision +taken in the light of their total significance. But when we hear that +the miners are solidly behind their leaders, we feel that this is a +clear case of ignorant and misguided men being led to their destruction +by agitators enjoying the exercise of power. The whole machinery of +news-making is directed to the confirmation of that impression; +and the chance that the miners’ claim will be considered equally is +destroyed by the weight which unequal economic power attaches to the +case against that claim. The opinion represented by the miners is not +objectively valued. It is the victim of a process of valuation the +purpose of which is to prevent, so far as possible, an alteration of +the _status quo_; and, _mutatis mutandis_, this is true of all claims +which seek alteration in a significant degree. + +Now it is, I think, unquestionable that in an unequal society, the +effort of ordinary men to attain the condition we call happiness is +hampered at every turn. The power of numbers is sacrificed to the +interest of a few. The truth of the facts which might make a just +solution is distorted for a similar end. Freedom, therefore, in an +unequal society has no easy task as it seeks realization. For its +search is not to realize itself for its own sake, but for what, as it +is realized, it is able to bring. We seek religious freedom for the +truth our religion embodies. We seek political freedom for the ends +that, in the political world, we deem good. We seek economic freedom +for the satisfaction brought by making an end of the frustration to our +personality an irrational subordination implies. Men do not, I believe, +resent an environment when they feel that they share adequately in its +making and in the end for which it is made. But they are bound to be +at least apathetic, and possibly hostile, when the sense is wide and +deep that they are no more than its instruments. That is the secret of +the profound allegiance trade unionism is able to create. Its members +see in its activities the expression of the power for which they +are individually searching. Few states--it is surely a significant +thing--have ever won from their subjects a loyalty so profound as the +Miners’ Federation of Great Britain, or the trade unions in the cotton +trades. Even the blunders of their leaders meet with a pardon far more +generous than would be extended to the political heads of the state. +The reason lies in the degree to which the trade union expresses the +intimate experience of its members. And until the policy of the state +meets that experience with similar profundity conflict between the +government and the trade union will rarely involve the desertion by +the members of the association they have themselves made. What the +government will represent as disloyalty to the state will seem to trade +unionists a service which is freedom. + +The point I am seeking to make was summarized with the insight of +genius by Disraeli when he spoke of the rich and poor as in fact two +nations. For the poor, their voluntary organizations evoke the same +kind of impassioned loyalty as a nation struggling to be free is able +to win from its members. Anyone who reads, for example, the early +history of bodies like the miners’ unions, and seeks to measure the +meaning of the sacrifices men were willing to make on their behalf, +will realize that he is meeting precisely the same kind of temper +as he can parallel from the history of the Italian struggle against +Austria or of the Balkan fight against Turkish domination. What Keir +Hardie did for the miners of Ayrshire, what Sidney Hillman has done +for the garment workers of America, are as epic and as creative, in +their way, as the work of Garibaldi and Mazzini. The latter must have +seemed at Vienna just as wrong and as unwise as Keir Hardie seemed to +the mineowners fifty years ago, or Hillman to the garment manufacturer +accustomed, in the classic phrase, to “conduct his own business in his +own way.” The point in each case is the important one that power is +challenged in the interest of self-government; that the focal point of +conflict is an inability on the part of those who govern to interpret +the experience of their subjects as these read its meaning; with the +result, again in each case, that the imposition of an interpretation +from without leaves those upon whom it is imposed with the sense that +their lives and their happiness are instruments and not ends. + +What is the outcome of it all? For me, at least, essentially that a +society pervaded by the fact of unequality is bound to deny freedom +and, therefore, to provoke conflict. Its values will be so distorted, +its apparatus for magnifying that distortion so complete, that it is +blinded to the realities which confront it. We do not need to go far +for proof. The daily newspaper, the novel, the poet, all confirm it. +Compare Macaulay’s glorification of Victorian progress with the picture +in Carlyle’s _Chartism_, or Dickens’ _Hard Times_. Set the resounding +complacency of Mr. Gladstone’s perorations against the indignant +insight of William Morris and Ruskin. Think of the America of President +Coleridge’s speeches, and the America as bitterly described by Mr +Sinclair Lewis. Remember that Treitzschke’s eulogy of blood and iron +is a picture of the same Germany as that which Bebel and Liebkneckt +sought to overthrow. Guizot’s era of the _juste milieu_ is the period +of Proudhon and Leroux, of Considerant and Louis Blanc, all of them, +however mistakenly, the protagonists of a just society. Men think +differently who live differently. If we have a society of unequals, +how can we agree either about means or ends? And if this agreement is +absent how can we, at least over a considerable period, hope to move +on our way in peace? + +An unequal society always lives in fear, and with a sense of impending +disaster in its heart. The effect of this atmosphere is clear enough. +We have only to examine the history of France after the death of Louis +XIV to realize exactly what it implies. Everyone who seeks to penetrate +below the surface sees some vast calamity ahead. It may be a visitor +like Chesterfield, a timid lawyer like Barbier, an ex-minister like +D’Argenson, a philosopher like Voltaire. The government itself, and +those with whom it is allied, has a perception that something new is +abroad. They fear the novelty and they seek to suppress it, in the +belief that a bold front and an adequate severity will stem the tide of +critical scepticism. But neither boldness nor severity can stem that +tide. The government falters for a moment on the verge of concession: +there is an hour when the ministry of Turgot seemed likely to +inaugurate an era of conciliation. It is too late because the price of +conciliation is the sacrifice of precisely the vested interests with +which the government is in partnership. So the ancient régime moves +relentlessly to its destruction. It is forced to consult those whose +experience it had never taken into account in the hope of salvation; +and they find that, if they are to fulfil, they must also destroy. + +That is, other things being equal, the inevitable history of such +societies. Their mental habits resemble nothing so much as the +horrified timidity which persuaded Hobbes to find in despotism the +only cure for social disagreement. They are afraid of reason, for this +involves an examination into their own prerogative and, as at least +probable, a denunciation of the title by which it is preserved. They +are afraid of concession, because they see in it an admission of the +weakness of their case. They magnify scepticism into sedition and they +accuse even their friends who doubt the virtue of severity of betraying +the allegiance which is their due. They cannot see that men will not +accept the state as the appointed conscience of the nation unless they +conceive themselves to possess a full share of its benefits. They +minimize the sufferings of others, because they do not have experience +of them, and they magnify their own virtues that they may gain +confidence in themselves. They distort history, and call it patriotism; +they repress the expression of grievance and call it the maintenance +of law and order. In such a society, the governors appear to their +subjects as dwellers in another world; and communication between them +lacks the vivifying quality of fellowship. For the truth of one party +is never sufficiently the truth of another for the members to talk a +common language. Every vehemence becomes a threat; and by a kind of +mad logic every threat is taken as an act of treason. The society is +unbalanced because justice is not its habitation. Even its generosity +will be resented because it has not known how to be just. + +I do not want to be taken as implying that violence is the inevitable +end. I only argue that the irrefutable and inherent logic of a +society where the gain of living is not proportioned to its toil +is one of which violence is the inevitable end. We have never any +choice in history except to follow reason wholly or, ultimately, to +expect disaster; and as we approach that ultimate, the temper of the +society will be what I have described. For the rule of reason in a +community means that a special interest must always give way before the +principles it discovers. And the rule of reason is the only kind of +rule which can afford the luxury of freedom. That is, I think, because +an admission that the claims of reason are paramount makes possible the +emergence of a spirit of compromise. The basis of the society being +just, men are not prepared for conflict over detail; but when the basis +itself is unacceptable, conflict over detail is magnified into a fight +over principle. In such a temper, men are always discussing with their +backs on the edge of a precipice. Social discussion becomes Carlyle’s +ultimate question of “Can I kill thee or canst thou kill me?” Every +utterance is necessarily a challenge; and suppressed because so taken; +every association is a conspiracy and attacked because so imagined. +The only way to avoid so poisonous an atmosphere is to be prepared to +surrender what you cannot prove it is reasonable to hold. But, human +nature being what it is, men do not easily surrender what they have the +power to retain; and they will pay the price of conflict if they think +they can win. They do not remember that the price of conflict is the +destruction of freedom and that with its loss there go the qualities +which make for the humanity of men. + + +IV + +I spoke a little earlier of the sense of national freedom; and these +lectures would be even more incomplete than they are unless I sought to +dwell briefly on what such freedom means. Let me take here as my text +a sentence from John Stuart Mill which might well stand as the classic +embodiment of one of the outstanding ideals of the nineteenth century. +“It is” he wrote “in general a necessary condition of free institutions +that the boundaries of governments should coincide in the main with +those of nationalities.” I do not need to remind you of the commentary +history has written upon that text. In its name were accomplished the +unity of Italy and Germany, the breakup of the Turkish and Russian +empires, the separation of the Baltic peoples from the domination of +Russia. The economic motive apart, no principle has been more fruitful +of war than the demand for national freedom. Even yet, the day of its +power is far from ended; for every misapplication of Mill’s principle +in the peace treaties of 1919 has raised problems of government +which the world will find it difficult to solve without the bloody +arbitrament of the sword. + +Now nationality is a subjective conception that eludes definition in +scientific terms. As an Englishman, I can feel in my bones the sense of +what English nationality implies; I feel intimately, for instance, the +things that enable me to claim Shakespeare or Jane Austen or Dickens +as typically English, without being able to put into words the things +that make them so. Every factor to which nationality has been traced, +race, language, common political allegiance, is an excessive simplicity +which betrays scientific exactitude. It is true that nationality is +born of a common historic tradition, of achievement and suffering +mutually shared; it is true, also, that language and race, and even a +common political allegiance, have played their part in its formation. +It is obvious that there is something exclusive about nationality, +that the members of any given nation have a sense of separateness from +other people which gives them a feeling of difference, of uniqueness, +which makes domination by others so unpleasant as to involve profound +discomfort to a point which may involve, even justly involve, +resistance to that domination. But the fact remains that nationality is +a psychological phenomenon rather than a juridical principle. It is in +the former, not the latter, sphere that we must seek to meet its claims. + +Mill’s principle, if carried to its logical conclusion, would mean +that every nation has a title to statehood. I want you to think what +that implies. The modern state is a sovereign state, and in terms of +that title no will can bind its purpose but its own. The legal meaning +of sovereignty is omnicompetence. The state may, as it please, make +peace or war. It can erect its own tariffs, restrict its immigration, +decide upon the rights of aliens within its borders, without the duty +of consulting its neighbours, or paying any attention to principles of +justice. States have done all these things. There is no crime they have +not been prepared to commit for the defence or the extension of their +own power. A different moral code has been applied in history to their +acts from what we insist upon applying to individual acts, and it is, +quite definitely, a lower moral code. The history of the nation which +becomes a state and insists upon the prerogatives of its statehood +is a history incompatible with the terms upon which the maintenance +of peace depends. That exclusive temper which, as I have argued, is +the root of nationality means a measurable loss of ethical quality in +those international relations which are concerned with questions of +power. You have only to remember the acts which, during the war, states +attempted against one another amid the applause of their subjects to +realize that the recognition of national unity as a state means the +destruction of private liberty and the violation of international +justice, unless we can find means of setting some limit to the powers +of which a nation-state can dispose. + +I am particularly concerned with the exercise of those powers on +their economic side. The nation-state is expected to protect the +activities of its citizens outside its own boundaries. Its prestige +becomes associated with its power to act in this way. So Germany +supports the Mannesman brothers in Morocco, England the Rothschilds in +Egypt, America its citizens in half the territories of South America. +Nationalism becomes imperialism and this means the enslavement of +lesser nations to the imperialistic power. In its worst temper, its +eternal character was described by Thucydides in that passage where he +relates the tragic end of Melos, a passage it would be mere insolence +either to summarize or to praise. Even where imperialism has resulted +in measurable benefit to the subject people, as with Great Britain in +India, or the United States in the Philippines, the resultant loss +of responsibility and character, which an imposed rule implies, is a +heavy price to pay for the efficiency of administration that has been +conferred. The noble phrase of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman that good +government is no substitute for self-government seems to me borne out +by every phase of the history of imperialism. It is the imposition +of a system of experience upon a people ignorant of the character +of that experience for ends only partially its own, and by methods +which neglect unduly the relation of consent to happiness in the +process of government. The classic case in my own experience is that +of Ireland. I cannot find ground upon which to defend the habits of +Great Britain there. But those habits seem to me the inevitable outcome +of an assumption that Great Britain was entitled to decide alone the +character of her own destiny. + +Nationality, in a word, must, if it is to be consistent with the +needs of civilization, be set in the context that matters of common +interest to more than one nation-state cannot be decided by the fiat +of one member of the international community. Modern science and +modern economic organization has reduced this world to the unity of +interdependence: the inference from this condition is, as I think, the +supremacy of cosmopolitan need over the national claim. A nation, that +is, is not entitled to be the sole judge of its conduct where that +conduct, by its subject-matter, implicates others. It must consult with +them, compromise with them, find the means of resolving the problem +in terms of peace. Everyone of us can think of functions that, in the +modern world, entail international consequences by their inherent +character. We have passed the stage where we can allow a state to +fix its own boundaries as it thinks best, without consultation with +other states. The same is true of matters like the treatment of racial +minorities, of the scale of armaments, of the making of war and peace. +Everyone can see that matters like the control of the traffic in +noxious drugs, or of women and children, of epidemics like cholera and +typhus, cannot be settled save as states co-operate upon agreed methods +of action. Most people can see, at least in principle, that the same +thing applies to labour conditions, to legal questions like the law of +bills and notes, or the rights of aliens before a municipal court, or +the incorporation of public companies. An historian who surveyed the +history of international investment would, I think, not illegitimately +conclude that there are principles applicable to its control which can +justly regard with indifference the question of the nationality of the +investor or the state-power to which, save in cases of default, he +is certain to appeal. The importance of the supply of raw materials +to international economic life forces us to consider the deliberate +rationing of that supply, and the maintenance of a stable world +price level which thinks first of cosmopolitan need, and, only after +a long interval, of national profit. A sane man would, I suggest, +conclude that if bodies like the International Rail Syndicate, or the +Continental Commercial Union in the glass industry, find it sensible to +transcend national competition by international agreement, _a fortiori_ +the principle applies to matters of world-concern. + +I am, of course, only illustrating the problem.[51] The principle +which seems to me to emerge is the necessity for world-control where +the decision is of world-concern. The inference from that principle +is that the rights of the state are always subject to, and limited +by, the necessarily superior rights of the international community. +State-sovereignty, that is, in the sense in which the nineteenth +century used that term, is obsolete and dangerous in a world like our +world. It gives an authority to the nation-state which, in the light +of the facts, is incompatible with the well-being of the world. It +invokes the factor of prestige in realms where it has no legitimate +application. It means that problems of which a wise solution is +possible only in terms of reason have to find a solution amid +circumstances of passion and power which obviate any possibility of +justice. + +For in the external, as in the internal, sphere of the state, the +choice is between the use of reason and conflict. The use of reason is +the law of liberty; conflict means the erosion of liberty. If states +are to conduct their operations always with the knowledge in the +background that the price of disagreement is war, the consequences are +obvious. The atmosphere of international affairs will be poisoned by +fear, and fear will bring with it the system of armaments and alliances +which, in 1914, issued naturally and logically in the Great War. That +was the price properly paid for a scheme of things which assumed that +the legal right of the state was unlimited, and harnessed to the +support of that legality every primitive and barbarous passion by which +nationalism can degrade humanity. We need not be afraid to assert +that, in the international sphere, the sovereignty of the state simply +means the right of any powerful nation to make its own conception +of self-interest applicable to its weaker opponents. It is the old +doctrine of self-help clothed in legal form; the doctrine against which +law itself came as a protest in the name of order and common sense. +And exactly as we cannot admit the right of a man to make his own law +in the internal life of the community, so we cannot allow the single +nation-state to make its own law in the wider life of the international +community. Because that is what the sovereignty of the state ultimately +means, the sovereignty of the state is a conception which outrages the +patent needs of international well-being. + +I conclude, therefore, that if the nation is entitled to +self-government, it is to a self-government limited and defined by +the demands of a wider interest. I conclude that its recognition as a +state, if sovereignty be involved in that recognition, is incompatible +with a just system of international relations. It is, further, +incompatible with the notion of an international law regarded as +binding upon the member-states of the international community. I need +not dwell upon the impossible difficulties in which the defenders of +this doctrine have found themselves.[52] In their extreme form they +have even led a great jurist to write of war as the supreme expression +of the national will.[53] I am unable to share such a view. Where war +begins, freedom ends. Where war begins, the opportunity of making just +solutions of any problem in dispute is indefinitely postponed. And I +ask you to remember that, although, under modern conditions, a whole +nation is implicated in war after its beginning, that is not the case +either with its preparation or its declaration. That is an affair of +the agents of the state whose interest in the action they take may be +totally at variance with the interest of the people for whom they are +taken as acting. They may be serving private ambition, a particular +party; they may be acting on false information or wrong conceptions. My +point is that they dispose of the whole power of the state, and that +there is no means of checking their activity save the very unlikely +means of revolution. The full implications of national sovereignty are +a license to wreck civilization. I cannot recognize those implications +as necessary to a proper view of national freedom. + +I deny, therefore, that there is any qualitative difference between +the interests or the rights of states, and the interests or rights of +other associations or individuals. Their purposes are ordinary, human +purposes like any other: they are a means to the happiness of their +members. They have, it seems to me, to be judged by exactly the same +principles as those by which we judge the conduct of a trade union, or +a church, or a scientific society. They do not constitute a corporate +person living on a plane different from, and having standards other +than, those of the individuals of whom they are composed. I fully agree +that no decision ought to be taken about them, in the making of which +they do not amply share. I fully agree, also, that limitations imposed +upon their activities must pay scrupulous regard to the psychological +facts out of which they are built. I do not, for instance, deny that +the Partition of Poland was a crime against Poland, or that its +inevitable result was to persuade millions of human beings that a war +for their resuscitation was a morally justified adventure. But I see +no difference between the Partition of Poland and, let us say, the +suppression in the community of a Communist Party. Each seems to me an +attack upon a corporate experience which is wrong because it does not +persuade those who share that experience to abandon its implications. +I do not advocate the supremacy of international authority over the +national state in order to destroy the national state. I advocate that +supremacy as the sole way with which I am acquainted to set the great +fact of nationalism in its proper perspective. + +My point is, then, that the fact of a nation’s existence does not +entitle it to the full panoply of a sovereign state. Scotland and Wales +are both of them nations; neither possesses that panoply; neither, I +think, suffers in moral or psychological stature by reason of its +absence. Neither, let me add, do the Scandinavian peoples--perhaps the +happiest of modern communities--who are only sovereign states upon the +essential condition that they do not exercise their sovereignty. But +there is no more humiliation in that position than in the position any +government occupies in the context of its own subjects. Power is, by +its very nature, an exercise in the conditional mood. Those who exert +it can only have their way by making its objects commend themselves, +as, also, its methods of pursuing those objects, to those over whom it +is exerted. The sovereign king in Parliament could legally disfranchise +the working-classes in England; practically we know that it dare not +do so. Everyone in England is aware of the grim, practical limitations +under which parliamentary sovereignty operates; no one, I believe, +finds humiliation in limits such as we know. + +What is happening to the world is something of the same sort. The +Covenant of the League of Nations is a method of limiting the +unfettered exercise of national sovereign power. It is a painful and +delicate operation; how painful and how delicate the timidity that has +been characteristic of the League’s history makes hideously manifest. +At any point in which the history of the League is examined, elections +to the Council, operations of the Mandate system, application of a +plebiscite, resolution of an international dispute, the statesmen of +Geneva have hesitated to act upon the logic of the world’s facts. They +have seen great nations confronting them, and they have feared that +those nations might, if angered, flout the League and go their own +way. So the League has fumbled and compromised and evaded. The big +states have controlled it, and over almost all of its history there has +fallen, darkening it, the shadow of the war. + +Yet experience of the League gives us hope rather than despair. It +took three centuries to build up the sovereign national state to that +amplitude which proclaimed its own disastrous character in 1914; it +would be remarkable indeed if a decade full of memories and hates +so passionate as those of the last ten years sufficed to overthrow +its authority. We can at least say out of the experience of those ten +years that remarkable incursions into that authority have occurred. +We have discovered a great range of social questions the solution +of which is not relevant to the national state or to the problems +of power that state first of all considers. We have been able, that +is, to devise subjects of government in which national control is +not the obvious technique of operation. We have found, further, that +a platform can be constructed at Geneva the nature of which throws +any possible aggressor upon the defensive, and suggests the possible +organization against it of the rest of the civilized world. We are +finding ways of reaching the opinion of citizens in different states +over the heads of their governments; of making those citizens demand +attention to League recommendations in a way that a generation ago +would have been unthinkable. We have shown, and this, in some ways, is +the vital discovery of our time, that men of different nationalities +can co-operate together in the task of international government in +such a way as to sink the pettiness of a narrow outlook before the +greatness of the common task. I know that Sir Arthur Salter is a great +Englishman; but I believe his quality as an Englishman has been made +complete because he is above all a great citizen of the world. + +I do not want to exaggerate the prospects of achievement that lie +before us; one blunder in Moscow or Rome might easily destroy every +hope we may tentatively cherish. I want merely to note that the idea of +a world-state is slowly, painfully, hesitantly, taking shape before our +eyes. I want to emphasize the logic of that state in an international +community so inescapably interdependent as this. I want to draw +therefrom the inference that national sovereignty and the international +community confront one another as incompatibles. Even the states which +have most carefully stood aloof from Geneva are in a degree to which +they are themselves unconscious within the orbit of that influence +which its idea makes so compelling. There is hardly one aspect of the +League’s work in which American citizens have not borne their share; +and I should hazard the suspicion that there have been occasions +when “unofficial observers” have done considerably more than observe +unofficially. I do not believe it is exaggeration to suggest that the +underlying motive of the Kellogg Pact was compensation by America for +her abstention from the Geneva Covenant. The Pact, by itself, is an +empty declaration; but its logic, like that of the Covenant, is likely +to take it much further in the direction of international government +than its authors intended it should go. Even Russia, in some sort the +antipodes of Geneva, has appeared there at Disarmament Conferences; and +even granted the rigour of the premises upon which her life is built, +she cannot remain unrelated to the structure of a world-order. + +I believe, accordingly, that we can retain all that is essential to the +freedom of national life, and yet fully admit the implications of the +international community. We can leave to England, for instance, her +full cultural independence, her characteristic internal institutions, +her special contacts with the Dominions she has begotten; to sacrifice +the predominance of her navy, her right, by its means, to dictate the +law of the sea, would still leave her England. She would still be +England even if, to push speculation to the furthest point, the Suez +Canal were internationalized and Gibraltar returned to Spain. France +would be not the less France if the gold policy of her bank were set +by an international authority, if she gave up her zeal for a conscript +army, if she built her frontiers upon the impalpable solidity of +friendship rather than the shifting waters of the Rhine. I can see +nothing in the conceivable policy of a stronger League which would take +from her the glory that has made her the Athens of the modern world. +Changes in law policy, a different colonial outlook, a willingness to +improve the physical standards of labour, an acceptance of novel and +military forces determined upon the basis of world safety instead of +national aggressiveness--it is difficult to see in any of these things +such a blow at freedom as destroys the prospect of national happiness. +I can see grounds for the view that an international authority which +forbade the teaching of French in French schools; or altered the +boundary of France so as to make Marseilles Italian; or sought the +abrogation of the French civil code with its profound impact on the +social customs of France; might reasonably be regarded as invading what +in a nation’s life that nation only can claim to decide. I can see +that a nation might feel an international authority to be oppressive +if it sought, say, by an immigration policy seriously to alter the +_mores_ of a national life; it should not impose Japanese immigration +on California any more than Great Britain seeks to impose it upon +Australia. I can even see that oppression might be felt where, in the +building of an international civil service, there was a sense that +there is discrimination against the members of any particular nation, +or that in composing the committees of its government proper attention +is not given to the claims of some particular power. + +The likelihood of any of these difficulties becoming real is, surely, +exceedingly small. An international authority must presumably be +endowed with an average volume of human common sense; and it is no +more likely than any other authority to invite disaster. Indeed it is +rather likely to fail to embark upon experiments and decisions it ought +to make from an excessively delicate sense of what some particular +nation may feel. International life in this realm is much more likely +to be a régime of example and influence than one of legislative +compulsion simply because the penalties of national dissent would +strain too gravely the structure of the authority which sought an +unwise imposition of its will. Here, once more, the situation is very +like that of the internal life of a national state. There is hardly +any association the state could not overthrow if it bent its energies +to the task. But, also, most states are wise enough to realize that +victories of this kind are empty victories, that solutions imposed by +force have consequences invariably too grave to be satisfactory in +their application. Consent has its full place in the international +sphere; and it is a safeguard of national right as creative here, +as elsewhere. Indeed it may reasonably be argued that with the +disappearance of national sovereignty, the factor of consent is likely +to be far more effective, far more genuinely related to the realities +of the world; than it is at the present time. For consent between two +powers like, say, America and Nicaragua, or Great Britain and Iraq has +something in it which partakes of the ironical spirit. It is consent +always in the knowledge that refusal to agree will make no serious +difference to the result that occurs. But the surrender of national +sovereignty is the surrender of aggressive power; and the nation can +move on its way the more freely since it knows that it no longer lives +in the shadow of international injustice. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE OUTLOOK FOR LIBERTY + + +Every study of freedom is a plea for toleration; and every plea for +toleration is a vindication of the rights of reason. The chief danger +which always confronts a society is the desire of those who possess +power to prohibit ideas and conduct which may disturb them in their +possession. They are rarely concerned with the possible virtues of +novelty and experiment. They are interested in the preservation of a +static society because in such an order their desires are more likely +to be fulfilled. Their ideas of right and wrong lie at the service of +those desires. The standards they formulate are nothing so much as +methods of maintaining an order with which they are satisfied; and +those they repress or resent, are equally methods of establishing a new +order in which different demands would secure fulfilment. + +But this is not a static world, and there is no means of making it +so. Curiosity, discovery, invention, all of these jeopardize by their +nature the foundations of any society to which their results are denied +admission. Toleration is therefore not merely desirable in itself, +but also politically wise, because no other atmosphere of activity +offers the assurance of peaceful adjustment. If power is held by a few, +happiness will be confined to a few also. Every novelty will seem a +challenge to that confinement; and it will always accrete about itself +the wills of those who are excluded from a share in its benefits. +For this world is not only dynamic; it is also diverse. The path to +happiness is not a single one. Men are not willing to yield the insight +of their experience to other men’s insight merely because they are +commanded to do so. They must be persuaded by reason that one vision of +desire is better than another vision, the experience commended to them +must persuade and not enforce, if they are to accept its implications +with a sense of contentment. + +This is, of course, a counsel of perfection. Men enjoy the exercise of +power; no passion has a deeper hold upon human impulse. The willingness +to admit the prospect of difference, the courage to see that one’s +private truth is never commensurate with the whole truth, these are +the rarest of human qualities. That is why the friends of liberty are +always a minority in every society. That is why, also, the maintenance +of liberty is a thing that has to be fought for afresh every day, lest +an inert acceptance of some particular imposition make the field of +action accessible to a general tyranny. For it is impossible to confine +the area in which freedom may be permitted to some special and defined +part of conduct. Those who have fought for the right to think freely in +theology or the natural sciences are not less certainly the ancestors +of political freedom. Without Bruno and Galileo there would have been +neither Rousseau nor Voltaire. + +Liberty, therefore, cannot help being a courage to resist the demands +of power at some point that is deemed decisive; and, because of this, +liberty, also, is an inescapable doctrine of contingent anarchy. It +is always a threat to those who operate the engines of authority that +prohibition of experience will be denied. It is always an assertion +that he who has learned from life some lesson he takes to be truth will +seek to live that lesson unless he can be persuaded of its falsehood. +Punishment may persuade some to abandon the effort; and others may be +driven by its imposition to conceal their impulse to act upon the view +they take. But persecution, however thoroughgoing, will never, over any +long period, be able to suppress significant truth. If the principles +that are urged by a few correspond to some widespread experience those +who recognize the expression of their experience will inevitably +reaffirm it. It has been the historic character of persecution always +to degrade the persecutor and to strengthen the persecuted by drawing +attention to their claims. The only way to deal with novelty is to +understand it, and the only way to deal with grievance is to seek a +remedy for the complaint it embodies. To deny novelty or grievance a +right of expression is a certain, if, indeed, an ultimate, validation +of the truth they contain. + +We have, it appears, to learn this anew in each generation. We grant +toleration in one part of the field only to deny it in another. We +grant it in religion to deny it in politics; we grant it in politics, +to deny it in economic matters. Each age finds that the incidence +of freedom is significant at some special point, and there, once +more, the lesson of freedom has to be learned. Each age makes some +idol in its own image and sacrifices upon its altar the freedom of +those who refuse it worship. Ultimately, that denial is always made +upon the same ground: it is insisted that the doctrines or practices +attacked are subversive of the civil order. The intolerance may be +Catholic, when it insists that a unity of outlook is essential for the +preservation of society; or it may be Protestant when, as with Calvin +and the Socinians, it holds that the blasphemous nature of the belief +anathematized destroys the reverence upon which society depends. The +essence of the persecuting position is always that the persecutor has +hold of truth and that he would betray its service by allowing it to be +questioned. He is able, accordingly, to indulge in the twofold luxury +not only of preserving his own authority, but also of assisting the +persons attacked to enter, if they so choose, the way of truth. + +When attacks on liberty are political or economic, it is their motive +rather than their nature that changes. A political pattern has the same +hold upon its votaries as a religion; the enthusiasts of Moscow and of +Rome differ only in the object of their worship. An economic system +defends itself in just the same way: the devotees of Marxism in its +extreme form have never doubted their right to impose their outlook +upon the recalcitrant, even at the cost of blood. In a constitutional +state like America the suppression of liberty is called the inhibition +of license; in a dictatorship like Moscow it is termed resistance to +the admission of incorrect “bourgeois” notions. Always the effort is to +insist upon an artificial unity the maintenance of which is necessary +to the desires of those who hold power. Suppression, doubtless, eases +the way of authority, for scepticism is always painful, and to arrive +at a conclusion after careful testing of evidence always involves the +possibility that authority may have to admit that its conclusions are +mistaken. + +Yet it may still be maintained with some confidence that the only +adequate answer to a principle which claims social recognition is the +rational proof that it is untrue. It may even be argued that the world +would be a happier world if this were the general theory underlying +the activities of society. Civilization is strewn with the wrecks of +systems which men at one time held for true; systems, also, in the +name of which liberty was denied and pain needlessly inflicted. A +scrutiny of history, moreover, makes it plain that the right to liberty +will always be challenged where its consequence is the equalization +of some privilege which is not generally shared by men. The more +consciously, therefore, we can seek that equalization as a desirable +object of social effort, the more likely we are to make attacks upon +liberty more rare, the evil results of such attack less frequent. No +man’s love of justice is strong enough to survive the right to inflict +punishment in the name of the creed he professes; and the simplest +way to retain his sense of justice is to take away the interest which +persuades him of the duty to punish. Scepticism, it may be, is a +dissolvent of enthusiasm; but enthusiasm has always been the enemy +of freedom. The atmosphere we require, if we are to attain happiness +for the multitude, is one in which we have everything to gain by the +statement of experience and nothing to lose by the investigation of +its convictions. That atmosphere is the condition of liberty and its +quality is light rather than heat. For light permits of argument, and +we cannot argue with men who are in a passion. Nothing is so likely to +engender passion as the perception that they are called to sacrifice a +privilege. The way, therefore, of freedom is to arrange the pattern of +social institutions so that there are no privileges to sacrifice. + +This kind of plea for liberty is built, after all, upon the simple +consideration that the world is likely to be the more happy if it +refuses to build its institutions upon injustice. And institutions are +necessarily unjust if the impression they continually produce in the +majority is a feeling of envy and hatred for the results they impose. +There is something wrong in a system which, like ours, maintains itself +not by the respect and affection it evokes, but by the sanctions to +which it can appeal. What is wrong in them is their erection upon the +basis of passion and their insistence that reason shall serve what that +passion is seeking to protect. So long as that is true of our society, +we shall continue to deny the validity of all principles which attack +the existing disposition of social forces. Those principles may often +be wrong; yet sometimes, at least, they represent the certainties of +the future. It is always a hazardous enterprise to suppress belief +which claims to be rooted in the experience of men. + +For no outlook which has behind it the support of considerable +numbers will ever silently acquiesce in its reduction to impotence. +It will fight for its right to be heard whatever the price of the +conflict. Here it has been urged that conflict of this kind is usually +unnecessary and frequently disastrous. It has been claimed that truth +can be established by reason alone; that departure from the way of +reason as a method of securing conviction is an indication always of a +desire to protect injustice. Where there is respect for reason, there, +also, is respect for freedom. And only respect for freedom can give +final beauty to men’s lives. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +[1] Acton, _History of Freedom_, p. 57. + +[2] As Mr. Aldous Huxley, for instance, does with a quite unnecessary +apparatus of scholarship in his _Proper Studies_, pp. 1-31. + +[3] All this has been put in classic form by the late Professor +Hobhouse in his _Metaphysical Theory of the State_ (1918). + +[4] Cf. Barker, _Political Thought from Herbert Spencer to Today_ +(1915), p. 80. + +[5] W. H. Taft, _Our Supreme Magistrate and His Powers_ (1921), pp. +102-3. + +[6] See my detailed discussion of the point in 34 Michigan Law Review, +p. 529. + +[7] 189 U.S. 253. + +[8] (1915) A. C. 120. + +[9] 38 Sup. Ct. Rep. 122. + +[10] (1923) 2 K. B. 61. + +[11] Cf. my _Grammar of Politics_, pp. 541 f. + +[12] _Ibid._ + +[13] _Esprit des Lois_, Bk. XI, Chap. VI. + +[14] Second Treatise, Sec. 12. + +[15] Cf. my paper on American Federalism in the volume entitled _The +Dangers of Obedience_ (1930). + +[16] Cf. Louis Post, _The Deportations Delirium_ (1921). + +[17] 250 U.S. 616. + +[18] See Taney’s _Report_. + +[19] I. W. Graham, _Conscription and Conscience_ (1922), Chap. III. + +[20] _Ibid._, p. 209. + +[21] _Ibid._ + +[22] See, for example, Wickwar’s _Freedom of the Press_ for an account +of judicial _mores_ in the early nineteenth century; and H. T. Buckle’s +pamphlet on the Pooley case for similar conduct thirty years later. + +[23] Z. C. Chafee’s classic discussion in _Freedom of Speech_ is the +best account of this unhappy period. + +[24] Thereby laying himself open to FitzJames Stephen’s crushing attack. + +[25] Cf. my _Grammar of Politics_, Chap. VII. + +[26] Cf. my _Grammar of Politics_, p. 82 f. + +[27] A list is printed in Ernst and Segal, _To the Pure_ (1929), pp. +296-302. + +[28] This is brought out well in Mr Nokes’ excellent book on the +blasphemy laws. + +[29] 53 G. III, C. 160. + +[30] _Ut supra._ + +[31] Cf. my _Grammar of Politics_, p. 554. + +[32] Cd. 1614 (1922). + +[33] Cf. my _Grammar of Politics_, pp. 256 f. + +[34] _Coppage_ v. _Kansas_, 236 U.S. 1. + +[35] Cf. my _Authority in the Modern State_, Chap. V. + +[36] Calwell, _Life of Sir H. Wilson_, Vol. II, _passim_. + +[37] _Le Droit Social_, Lect. III. + +[38] _The Observer_, 18 August 1929. + +[39] 277 U.S. 438. + +[40] Hammond, _The Skilled Labourer_, Chap. XII. + +[41] Cf. Mr Lippmann’s excellent analysis in _Liberty and the News_. + +[42] I take my account from a summary in the _Lantern_ (Boston), July +1929. + +[43] Lippmann, _Public Opinion_, pp. 379 f. + +[44] Cf. Lady Constance Lytton, _Prisons and Prisoners_. + +[45] Cf. Frankfurter and Green, _The Injunction in Labour Disputes_ +(1930). + +[46] See the lecture on Equality in _Mixed Essays_. + +[47] See for instance, the very interesting letter of Mr MacDonald to +Keir Hardie in W. Stewart, _Life of Keir Hardie_ (1921), p. 92. + +[48] Mr Ramsay Muir in the _Nation_, 17 August 1929. + +[49] Preface to the World’s Classics edition of Bagshot’s _English +Constitution_, p. xxiii. + +[50] _On Liberty_ (People’s edition), p. 68. + +[51] Cf. my _Grammar of Politics_, Chap. XI. + +[52] Cf. Lauterpacht, _Private Law Analogies in International Law_, +for a brilliant discussion of this question; and my paper ‘Law and the +State’ in _Economica_, No. 27, pp. 267 f. + +[53] Kaufman, _Das Wesen der Volkerrechts_. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78171 *** |