own?" there was the brief answer, "No man may do what is wrong,
either with what is his own or with what is another's." Producers,
too, who were not permitted to drive down their workmen's wages by
competition, could not sell their goods as cheaply as they might have
done, and the consumer paid for the law in an advance of price; but
the burden, though it fell heavily on the rich, lightly touched the
poor and the rich consented cheerfully to a tax which ensured the
loyalty of the people. The working man of modern times has bought
the extension of his liberty at the price of his material comfort.
The higher classes have gained in wealth what they have lost in
power. It is not for the historian to balance advantages. His duty
is with the facts.'


Our forefathers, then, were not free, if we attach to that word the
meaning which our Transatlantic brothers seem inclined to give to it.
They had not learnt to deify self-will, and to claim for each member
of the human race a right to the indulgence of every eccentricity.
They called themselves free, and boasted of their freedom; but their
conception of liberty was that of all old nations, a freedom which
not only allowed of discipline, but which grew out of it. No people
had less wish to exalt the kingly power into that specious tyranny, a
paternal Government; the king was with them, and always had been,
both formally and really, subject to their choice; bound by many
oaths to many duties; the minister, not the master of the people.
But their whole conception of political life was, nevertheless,
shaped by their conception of family life. Strict obedience, stern
discipline, compulsory education in practical duties, was the law of
the latter; without such training they thought their sons could never
become in any true sense men. And when they grew up, their civic