these
opponents, the Education Act is only one of a number of pieces of
legislation to which they object on principle; and they include under
like condemnation the Vaccination Act, the Contagious Diseases Act,
and all other sanitary Acts; all attempts on the part of the State to
prevent adulteration, or to regulate injurious trades; all legislative
interference with anything that bears directly or indirectly on
commerce, such as shipping, harbours, railways, roads, cab-fares, and
the carriage of letters; and all attempts to promote the spread of
knowledge by the establishment of teaching bodies, examining
bodies, libraries, or museums, or by the sending out of scientific
expeditions; all endeavours to advance art by the establishment of
schools of design, or picture galleries; or by spending money upon
an architectural public building when a brick box would answer the
purpose. According to their views, not a shilling of public money must
be bestowed upon a public park or pleasure-ground; not sixpence upon
the relief of starvation, or the cure of disease. Those who hold
these views support them by two lines of argument. They enforce them
deductively by arguing from an assumed axiom, that the State has no
right to do anything but protect its subjects from aggression. The
State is simply a policeman, and its duty is neither more nor less
than to prevent robbery and murder and enforce contracts. It is not to
promote good, nor even to do anything to prevent evil, except by the
enforcement of penalties upon those who have been guilty of obvious
and tangible assaults upon purses or persons. And, according to
this view, the proper form of government is neither a monarchy,
an aristocracy, nor a democracy, but an _astynomocracy_, or
police government. On the other hand, these views are supported _a
posteriori_, by an induction from observation, which professes to show
that whatever is done by a Government beyond these negative limits, is
not only sure to be done badly, but to be done much worse than private
enterprise would have done the same thing.

I am by no means clear as to the truth of the latter proposition. It
is generally supported by statements which prove clearly enough that
the State does a great many things very badly. But this is really
beside the question. The State lives in a glass house; we see what it
tries to do, and all its failures, partial or total, are made the most
of. But private enterprise is sheltered