ce. Among these is the necessity of security. Society
agrees to compensate in services of a different nature those who render
it the service of guarding the public safety. In this there is nothing
contrary to the principles of political economy. _Do this for me, I will
do that for you._ The principle of the transaction is the same, although
the process is different, but the circumstance has great significance.

In private transactions each individual remains the judge both of the
service which he renders and of that which he receives. He can always
decline an exchange, or negotiate elsewhere. There is no necessity of an
interchange of services, except by previous voluntary agreement. Such is
not the case with the State, especially before the establishment of
representative government. Whether or not we require its services,
whether they are good or bad, we are obliged to accept such as are
offered and to pay the price.

It is the tendency of all men to magnify their own services and to
disparage services rendered them, and private matters would be poorly
regulated if there was not some standard of value. This guarantee we
have not, (or we hardly have it,) in public affairs. But still society,
composed of men, however strongly the contrary may be insinuated, obeys
the universal tendency. The government wishes to serve us a great deal,
much more than we desire, and forces us to acknowledge as a real service
that which sometimes is widely different, and this is done for the
purpose of demanding contributions from us in return.

The State is also subject to the law of Malthus. It is continually
living beyond its means, it increases in proportion to its means, and
draws its support solely, from the substance of the people. Woe to the
people who are incapable of limiting the sphere of action of the State.
Liberty, private activity, riches, well-being, independence, dignity,
depend upon this.

There is one circumstance which must be noticed: Chief among the
services which we ask of the State is _security_. That it may guarantee
this to us it must control a force capable of overcoming all individual
or collective domestic or foreign forces which might endanger it.
Combined with that fatal disposition among men to live at the expense of
each other, which we have before noticed, this fact suggests a danger
patent to all.

You will accordingly observe on what an immense scale spoliation, by the
abuses and excesses of the gove