CRUELTY TO THE ABORIGINES. 403 Zealand, or to the Kaffir war, or to our perpetual aggressions in the East, or to colonial history at large, in proof of this, for the fact is self-evident. A schoolboy, made overbearing by the consciousness that there is always a big brother to take his part, typifies the colonist, who sees in his mother-country a bully ever ready to back and defend him. Unprotected emigrants, landing amongst a strange race, and feeling themselves the weaker party, are tolerably certain to behave well, and a community of them is likely to grow up in amicable relationship with the natives. But let these emigrants be followed by regiments of soldiers-let them have a fort built, and cannons mounted-let them feel that they have the upper hand, and they will no longer be the same men. A brutality will come out, which the discipline of civilized life had kept under; and not unfrequently they will prove more vicious than they even knew themselves to be. Various evil influences conspire with their own bad propensities. The military force guarding them has a strong motive to foment quarrels; for war promises prize-money. To the civil employés, conquest holds out a prospect of more berths and quicker promotion-a fact which must bias them in favour of it. Thus an aggressive tendency is encouraged in alla tendency which is sure to show itself in acts, and to betray the colonists into some of those atrocities that disgrace civilization. 7. As though to round off the argument more completely, history presents us with proof that whilst government colonization is accompanied by endless miseries and abominations, colonization naturally carried on is free from these. Notwithstanding the misconduct he is accused of, to William Penn belongs the honour of having shown men that the kindness, justice, and truth of its inhabitants, are better safeguards to a colony than troops and fortifications and the bravery of governors. In al. points Pennsylvania illustrates the equitable, as contrasted with the inequitable, mode of colonizing. It was founded not by the state, but by private individuals. It needed no mother-country protection, for it committed no breaches of the moral law. Its treaty with the Indians, described as "the only one ever concluded which was not ratified by an oath, and the only one that was never broken," served it in better stead than any garrison. For the sev enty years during which the Quakers retained the chief power, it enjoyed an immunity from that border warfare, with its concomitant losses, and fears, and bloodshed, to which other settlements were subject. On the other hand, its people maintained a friendly and mutually-beneficial intercourse with the natives; and, as a natural consequence of complete security, made unusually rapid progress in material prosperity. That a like policy would have been similarly advanta geous in other cases, may reasonably be inferred. No one can doubt, for instance, that had the East India Company been denied military aid and state-conferred privileges, both its own affairs, and the affairs of Hindostan, would have been in a far better condition than they now are. Insane longing for empire would never have burdened the Company with the enormous debt which at present para lyzes it. The energy that has been expended in aggressive wars would have been employed in developing the resources of the country. Unenervated by monopolies, trade would have been much more successful. The native rulers, influenced by a superior race on friendly terms with them, would have facilitated improvements; and we should not have seen, as now, rivers unnavigated, roads not bridged or metalled, and the proved capabilities of the soil neglected. Private enterprise would long ago have opened up these sources of wealth, as in fact it is at ITS ENTIRE IMPOLICY. 405 length doing, in spite of the discouragements thrown in its way by conquest-loving authorities. And had the settlers thus turned their attention wholly to the development of commerce, and conducted themselves peaceably, as their defenceless state would have compelled them to do, England would have been better supplied with raw materials, the markets for her goods would have enlarged, and something appreciable toward the civilization of the East would have been accomplished. 8. In many ways, then, does experience enforce the verdict pronounced by the law of state-duty against state-colonization. It turns out that extension of empire is not synonymous with increase of wealth; but that, on the contrary, aggressions bred of the desire for territorial gain, entail loss. The notion that we secure commercial benefits by legislative connection with colonies, is a proved delusion. At best we throw away the whole sum which colonial government costs us; whilst we may, and often do, incur further loss, by establishing an artificial trade. The plea for protection to the settlers must be abandoned; seeing that this so-called protection is in practice oppression; and seeing that the settlers, from whose judgment on the matter there is no appeal, hint very plainly their wish to dispense with it. As for the aborigines, it is manifest that the cruelties inflicted on them have been mainly due to the backing of emigrants by the parent state. And, lastly, we have conclusive proof not only that vol untary colonization is practicable, but that it is free from *hose many evils attendant upon colonization managed by a government. CHAPTER XXVIII. SANITARY SUPERVISION. 1. The current ideas respecting legislative interference in sanitary matters do not seem to have taken the form of a definite theory. The Eastern Medical Associa tion of Scotland does indeed hold "that it is the duty of the state to adopt measures for protecting the health as well as the property of its subjects;" and the Times lately asserted that "the Privy Council is chargeable with the health of the Empire; "* but no considerable political party has adopted either of these dogmas by way of a distinct confession of faith. Nevertheless, the opinions that widely prevail on questions of sewage, water-supply, ventilation, and the like, fully commit their advocates to the belief these dogmas embody. That it comes within the proper sphere of government to repress nuisances is evident. He who contaminates the atmosphere breathed by his neighbour, is infringing his neighbour's rights. Men having equal claims to the free use of the elements-having faculties which need this free use of the elements for their due exercise--and having that exercise more or less limited by whatever makes the elements more or less unusable, are obviously trespassed against by any one who unnecessarily vitiates the elements, and renders them detrimental to health, or disagreeable to the senses; and in the discharge of its function as protector, a government is obviously called upon to afford redress to those so trespassed against. Beyond this, however, it cannot lawfully go As A VIOLATION OF RIGHTS. 407 already shown in several kindred cases, for a government to take from a citizen more property than is needful for the efficient defence of that citizen's rights, is to infringe his rights-is, consequently, to do the opposite of what it, the government, is commissioned to do for him-or, in other words, is to do wrong. And hence all taxation for sanitary superintendence coming, as it does, within this category, must be condemned. § 2. This theory, of which Boards of Health and the like are embodiments, is no only inconsistent with our definition of state-duty, but is further open to strictures, similar to, and equally fatal with, those made in analogous cases. If by saying "that it is the duty of the state to adopt measures for protecting the health of its subjects," it is meant (as it is meant by the majority of the medical profession) that the state should interpose between quacks and those who patronize them, or between the druggist and the artisan who wants a remedy for his cold—if it is meant that to guard people against empirical treatment, the state should forbid all unlicensed persons from prescribingthen the reply is, that to do so is directly to violate the moral law. Men's rights are infringed by these, as much as by all other trade interferences. The invalid is at liberty to buy medicine and advice from whomsoever he pleases; the unlicensed practitioner is at liberty to sell these to whomsoever will buy. On no pretext whatever can a barrier be set up between them, without the law of equal freedom being broken; and least of all may the gov ernment, whose office it is to uphold that law, become a transgressor of it. Moreover this doctrine, that it is the duty of the state to protect the health of its subjects, cannot be established, for the same reason that its kindred doctrines cannot, namely, the impossibility of saying how far the alleged |