the ground that the persons protected are unable sufficiently to protect themselves; and the principle adopted is that of prevention instead of mere punishment for breach of duty. Hence an enormous army of inspectors is required for the work of control.
Another class of interferences is justified on the ground of public health, and these, in respect of the amount of state supervision required, stand next to the protective measures already enumerated. The common law of nuisance recog nizes the principle that any source of contagion or discom fort set up by an individual is an injury to those who may be affected by it, which they may call upon the state to suppress. The Sanitary Acts interpose the remedy at an earlier stage, and by the usual apparatus of Government inspectors and detectives. Tha largest measure on this subject is the Public Health Act, and the most extreme development of the principle is the lending of money by the Government to municipalities for the erection of healthy dwelling-houses for labourers. Personal freedom is more directly affected by measures like the Vaccination Act, for which, however, the double ground of the helplessness of t .is subjects and the prevention of danger amounting to nuisance may be taken. The least defensible of all tha mexsures of this class are those relating to the adulteration of various kinds of food. The fraudulent or negligent supply of food injurious to health is an injury which may be appropriately punished by awarding compensation to the parson injured, and inflicting punishment on the delinquent. But under the last Act (Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1875) it is a criminal offence to sell goods of a quality not asked for, and the usual staff of analysts and inspectors is estab lished to facilitate detection. The mighty engine of Govern ment determines the exact percentage of water which the dairyman may put in his milk and the publican in his gin.
Next come the cases in which the Government either aids or itself undertakes works of public convenience. The state monopoly of the post-office is the most conspicuous example, and we have recently seen it extended by the acquisition of the telegraphs. Less directly the state has acquired control of the locomotive system, by granting compulsory powers of various sorts and a pirtial monopoly to railway companies, and by imposing certain regulations on them. This department of state activity has been greatly increased by the operations of the Public Works Loans Commission, which lends money to local bodies for such purposes as the erection of baths and wash-houses, improving rivers, harbours, and towns, building light houses and public libraries, and the like.
The assertion of state control over endowments is another marked feature of the period. Except in this way, Govern ment has not, in England at least, interfered with the higher sort of education to any great extent. But most of the endowed schools and the universities have been subjected tD inquiry, and remodelled according to what are under stood to be the demands of the age. Almost every kind of corporation has been revised in the same way, the most notable and scandalous exception being the numerous and wealthy corporations of the city of London. The history of these reforms reveals a perfectly clear rationale of the relations existing between an endowed institution and the state. All endowments are privileges created by the state in the way of exception to the universal rule of law against perpetuities the rule which limits the operation of dead men s wills, and makes each generation master of its exist ing resources. When the purposes of an institution cease to be useful, or its organization is seen to be defective, it is the right and duty of the state to withdraw the privilege altogether, cr continue it under new conditions. All endowments become, in virtue of this rule, the property of the state; and how it shall deal with them becomes a question of statesmanship, not of interference with private interests. Under the name of " vested interests," all existing rights of individuals are stringently preserved. These two correlative principles the right of the state to revise all endowments, and the obligation to respect vested interests in any such revision have ceased to be disputable in English politics.
A similar extension of state control is to be seen in the organization of the professions—i.e., persons licensed to practise particular arts. The church, like the army, is not, properly speaking, a profession, and its regulations belong to the same class as those of the army or the civil service. The true professions are the various grades of lawyers and medical men. They have an exclusive monopoly of the arts which they profess. The protection of this monopoly was long the only connexion between them and the Government. They were left to the management of self-governing societies or corporations. Within our own generation there has been, not only a marked increase of state control over the professions, but a marked tendency to extend it to occupations hitherto uncontrolled. The system of medical licentiation is year by year becoming more stringent and more centralized. A recent Act provides for the more efficient testing of the qualifications of solici tors. The bar, which has hitherto with immense practical wisdom governed itself by means of voluntary societies, is threatened with a parliamentary constitution, settling the conditions of admission, examination, discipline, and dis missal. The free professions are demanding the like recog nition and supervision by the state. A bill is now (1879) before parliament for organizing the professions of school masters in the higher class of schools ; and elementary schoolmasters are claiming to be included in its scope. The business of buying and selling stocks and shares has narrowly escaped, if it has escaped, the rules and regula tions of an act of parliament. A commission was actually appointed a few years ago to investigate the practices of brokers and jobbers, and one of its recommendations was that the Stock Exchange should forthwith become a cor poration. The last interference of this sort was the appointment of a committee of the House of Commons, at the instance of the London retail traders, to inquire into the working of what are called co-operative stores. Inquiry does not of course imply interference, and a committee or a commission is often a convenient way of stopping the mouths of agitators whom it might not be convenient to ignore altogether. Futile as the remedy may be, the first thought of every aggrieved class is to lay its wrongs before parliament.
Protection of things from Excessive Consumption.—Another class of interferences maybe described, in the most general terms, as measures taken for the protection of things which would otherwise perish, or greatly diminish, by reason of excessive use. Statutes of this sort have greatly multiplied during the last fifty years. There is hardly any kind of animal, which men think worth catching or eating, without its statutory close-time. The ostensible reason for this kind of legislation is that salmon, let us say, or oysters, are a very important article of food, and unless men are restrained from pursuing them to excess, the. whole breed would ultimately be extinguished, or so reduced in number as to be of little use. Another and less avowed reason is that animals of the protected order are necessary for the recreation of a certain class of gentlemen, who, in the interest of their own pleasures, must be restrained from carrying them to excess. Thus no gun must be lifted against grouse before the 12th of August, or against partridges before the 1st of September, so that next year there may still be grouse and partridges in the land. The great majority of these enactments belong in spirit to the
