and its duty is neither more nor less than to prevent robbery and murder and enforce contracts.  It is not to promote good, nor even to do anything to prevent evil, except by the enforcement of penalties upon those who have been guilty of obvious and tangible assaults upon purses or persons.  And, according to this view, the proper form of government is neither a monarchy, an aristocracy, nor a democracy, but an astynomocracy, or police government.  On the other hand, these views are supported a posteriori, by an induction from observation, which professes to show that whatever is done by a Government beyond these negative limits, is not only sure to be done badly, but to be done much worse than private enterprise would have done the same thing.

I am by no means clear as to the truth of the latter proposition.  It is generally supported by statements which prove clearly enough that the State does a great many things very badly.  But this is really beside the question.  The State lives in a glass house; we see what it tries to do, and all its failures, partial or total, are made the most of.  But private enterprise is sheltered under good opaque bricks and mortar.  The public rarely knows what it tries to do, and only hears of failures when they are gross and patent to all the world.  Who is to say how private enterprise would come out if it tried its hand at State work?  Those who have had most experience of joint-stock companies and their management, will probably be least inclined to believe in the innate superiority of private enterprise over State management.  If continental bureaucracy and centralization be fraught with multitudinous evils, surely English beadleocracy and parochial obstruction are not altogether lovely.  If it be said that, as a matter of political experience, it is found to be for the best interests, including the healthy and free development, of a people, that the State should restrict itself to what is absolutely necessary, and should leave to the voluntary efforts of individuals as much as voluntary effort can be got to do, nothing can be more just.  But, on the other hand, it seems to me that nothing can be less justifiable than the dogmatic assertion that State interference, beyond the limits of home and foreign police, must, under all circumstances, do harm.

Suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that we accept the proposition that the functions of the State may be properly summed up in the one great negative commandment,—­“Thou shalt not allow any man to interfere with the liberty of any other man,”—­I am unable to see that the logical consequence is any such restriction of the power of Government, as its supporters imply.  If my next-door neighbour chooses to have his drains in such a state as to create a poisonous atmosphere, which I breathe at the risk of typhus and diphtheria, he restricts my just freedom to live just as much as if he went about with a pistol, threatening my life; if he is to be allowed to let his children go unvaccinated, he might as well be allowed to leave strychnine lozenges about in the way of mine; and if he brings them up untaught and untrained, to earn their living, he is doing his best to restrict my freedom, by increasing the burden of taxation for the support of gaols and workhouses, which I have to pay.