The gardener mends nature when he gives variety of tone and colour to the landscape. The agriculturist mends nature when he drains his land, when he adds any ingredients to the soil to increase its fertility, and when he improves the quality of his seed or his breed of live stock. In the same manner a legislature mends nature when it passes a measure for the removal of nuisances which are injurious to health, promotes education, or provides for the administration of justice. Every act of administration on the part of the state is an interference with nature: every positive law is an interference with natural law. Is there anything peculiarly sacred about industry that it should be looked upon as sacrilege to lay hands on it? The question does not require a moment's serious consideration. The dogma of laissez faire, if applied to social life, would be the negation of all law.

State

The state ever has interfered, and we venture to say, ever will interfere with industry, for the simple reason that it cannot help doing so. For what

interference

necessary.

purpose, if not in the interests of industry, does the state protect property, enforce contracts, and punish fraud? If we examine the statute books of any civilized people, we shall find the greater portion of them occupied with laws which, either directly or indirectly, affect trade. Indeed, the number of laws of this description in any country is a certain criterion of its industrial development. In the earlier stages of society, when industry was of the rudest kind, the number of

laws relating to trade were few and simple.

According

to Sir Henry Maine, the only form of dishonesty treated of in the most ancient Roman law was theft; 1 but as trade extended the opportunities for fraud were increased, and the laws for its repression were increased in proportion. The history of the acts passed by our own legislature shows very clearly that legislation followed crime, and crime followed industry. Laws relating to the tenure and transfer of land occupied an early place. in the statute book, for land is generally the first thing appropriated. With the development of trade there followed the laws relating to guilds and apprenticeships; as competition increased between people in the same occupation, bringing in its train new kinds of fraud, we have laws for the suppression of adulteration and against the use of light weights and short measures; as commerce extended, we have laws for regulating shipping, banks, insurance companies, and institutions of a like character; and with the introduction of the factory system we have laws innumerable for the regulation of the hours of labour, and generally for the protection of women and young persons in factories.

But while art mends, it also follows nature. It not only works in accordance with nature's law, but it follows nature's method. Nature does not lay down a law and expect it to be observed as nature's

a matter of course.

She attaches a penalty to

Legislative art

follows

method.

1 Ancient Law, p. 307.

the breach of it, and so presents a motive for its observance. If I put my finger over a flame, I suffer pain; if I go without food, I feel hungry; if I eat or drink too much, I have an uneasy sensation of repletion. The penalty attached to the breach of a law acts as a deterrent. The legislator follow nature's method in this respect. He attaches a penalty to every breach of the law in order to ensure its observance, and this acts as a deterrent on the human mind. A good or a bad action is performed because there is a motive for its performance. To prevent the performance of a bad action, a stronger counteracting motive must be supplied. A man may have a strong motive to steal, but if the penalty for stealing be imprisonment with hard labour for a term of years, this will usually form a stronger motive than the desire to appropriate, and will therefore counteract it.

Ends and

art.

Art has to do with ends and means. Not only must the legislator have a proper object in view in means of framing a law, but he must take the proper means to attain that object. The means at his command are motives which must be capable of influencing the human mind. If adequate motives are presented, the law will be successful in its operation; if inadequate, it will fail. All that science demands of art is the presentation of adequate motives.

Is it desirable, from an individual point of view, that

Social ends.

a certain act should be performed? Then the individual should perform it. Is it desirable,

from a social point of view, that a certain act should be performed? Then the state should perform it. It would be absurd to expect society to do for the individual what is chiefly for the individual's advantage; and it would be equally absurd to expect the individual to do for society what is chiefly for the interest of society. If society has no ends in view, then social organization will be reduced to a nullity; if it has ends, then it must take the proper means to accomplish those ends.

What is good for all, and not merely for an individual or a class, should be undertaken by the state; Social what benefits only the few should be left to means. private enterprise. Is it good for the whole community that there should be ships and commerce? Then the state should make harbours and build lighthouses. Is it good for the whole community that there should be intercommunication between the various parts of the country? Then the state should make roads or build railways, or sanction and promote their being made. Is it good for the whole community that the population should be fully employed and adequately remunerated ? Then it may be necessary for the state to promote, by such means as it has in its power, the growth of manufactures. This is rank heresy, I know, but the fact that it is so will not invalidate my argument in the slightest degree. The interests of the individual are sometimes antagonistic to, more often identical with, those of society, but they can never be coextensive with them. The individual is not expected to sacrifice himself for

the benefit of society, but it is expected of society, as it is of the individual, that it will look after its own interests. The principle laid down by Mill, that state interference is justifiable when important public services are to be performed which there is no individual specially interested in performing, nor any adequate remuneration which would naturally or spontaneously attend their performance, holds good in all cases.1

One cause of indus

trial supremacy.

1

Mill makes the pregnant remark that "the superiority of one country over another in a branch of production often arises only from having begun it sooner."2 To give a country this start may, under certain circumstances, be a public benefit, and therefore a public duty. To do so no doubt may entail a little temporary self-sacrifice on the part of the public, but this should not be considered a very serious objection. Success in anything is always attended with more or less sacrifice at the start. We must plant a tree before we can enjoy its fruit: we must build our houses before we can live in them. This kind of sacrifice is entailed on individuals equally with society. To establish a business, some expenditure of time, labour, and money is required; to learn a trade, one must serve a long apprenticeship; to acquire a profession, a youth must not only give years of service gratuitously, but often a bonus as well. The same principle is acted on by corporations as well as

1 Principles, vol. ii. book v. ch. xi. 15.

2 Ibid, vol. ii. book v. ch. x. 1.