THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1909. A STATE OF DEPENDENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9673, 11 December 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1909. A STATE OF DEPENDENCE.

"lt is no longer the preservation uf a strong: and Independent individualism that is the object of solicitude. It is the creation of a state of dependence of the individual for his safety on the State." These words occurred in a remarkable address on "The Narrowing Circle of Individual Rights" delivered by a great American jurist, Chief Justice Simeon E. Baldwin, of Connecticut, to the West Virginia Bar Association. The address has prompted another American jurist. Dr Hanni3 Taylor, to comment in the October "North American Review" on the startling growth of State power. All over the civilised world this change'at the expense of personal '"rights has been taking place, but so subtle and gradual has the process been that few realise its magnitude. Only by comparing the present sphere of State activity with that assigned to Governments by the great thinkers and statesmen of half a century ago can we understand the amazing character of the revolution in political ideas. The English phase of this silent revolution was made very plain in Professor Dicey's recent book on "Law and Public Opinion in England," but the Ameri' can phase described by Chief Justice Baldwin and Dr Hannis in still more significant. Individual rights were the very foundations of the American Constitution. Under it, as Dr Taylor shows, political preeminence was accorded to the individual as an indestructible and favoured unit which the Slate was bound to protect in life, liberty, and property. The American nation was convinced of the truth of the Spencerian doctrine that strong Governments make weak men; and its leaders of all parties, from Washington and Jefferson to Clay and Webster, stoutly maintained that the Legislature had no authority tp interere with any of the "rights ot man." Among those rights Washington and Jefferson included that of carrying on a lottery, Clay and Webster that of sending fvcm incendi»rv literature though the post. Such jealous tor

personal freedom was the natural reaction of the progressive New World against the ruthless repression of the individual under the absolutist monarchies of the Old World. Under the "ancien regime'' in France "the prying eye of the Government,'' as it has been said, "followed the butcher to the shambles and the baker of the oven." In prottst against the übiquitous tyranny of (he State the French iihilosophers developed their theories of the inherent and inalienable rights of individual man. Overgrowth of State power led in France itself to that "orgy of individualism 1 ' the Revolution, but in the Un'ted States to a fixed principle of personal liberty and a fundamental horror of Governmental interference. Yet even in the United States the prying eye of the Government" is again "following the butcher to the shambles and the baiter to the oven." Chief Justice Baldwin gave a stupendous list ot illustrations to prove that the individual is once more being made as dependent on the State os he was in pre-revolutionary France. Manufacturers find their field of enterprise contracted, because in one State they can neither distil nor brew, while in another they may not make a cigar-

ette. A man's house, which once could be seized only for strict purposes of government after full compensation, may now be "resumed" for a band-stand, a memorial site, a hospital, a college, or a free library. Farmers, who could once plant and till their own land in their own way, are now liable to the invasion of officials who may uproot trees in their orchards, order them to refrain from cutting their timber, compel them to submit t • floodings in order J that others may ensate water power for mills or factoiies, and curtail or deny for years their fishing rights in order to replenish streams with fish for others to catch and eat. A man who once could educate his children, as he pleased may now be forced to have them educated as the State de - crees. The individual labourer is often treated as a ward incapable of protecting himself. lie may not agree to work for more than a certain number of hours a day, and is in some States deprived of almost all contractual rights. These are only a few of the many ways in which the individual in the United States is being subjected to State control. Professor Dicey has eiven similar examples of legislation in England, and even more astounding interferences with individual liberty be cited from the statuteboiks of Australia and New Zealand.