it the sinews of battle; a
government which shall have its soldiers of the ploughshare as well as
its soldiers of the sword, and which shall distribute more proudly its
golden crosses of industry--golden as the glow of the harvest, than now
it grants its bronze crosses of honour--bronzed with the crimson of
blood.

16. I have not, of course, time to insist on the nature or details of
government of this kind; only I wish to plead for your several and
future consideration of this one truth, that the notion of Discipline
and Interference lies at the very root of all human progress or power;
that the "Let-alone" principle is, in all things which man has to do
with, the principle of death; that it is ruin to him, certain and total,
if he lets his land alone--if he lets his fellow-men alone--if he lets
his own soul alone. That his whole life, on the contrary, must, if it is
healthy life, be continually one of ploughing and pruning, rebuking and
helping, governing and punishing; and that therefore it is only in the
concession of some great principle of restraint and interference in
national action that he can ever hope to find the secret of protection
against national degradation. I believe that the masses have a right to
claim education from their government; but only so far as they
acknowledge the duty of yielding obedience to their government. I
believe they have a right to claim employment from their governors; but
only so far as they yield to the governor the direction and discipline
of their labour; and it is only so far as they grant to the men whom
they may set over them the father's authority to check the
childishnesses of national fancy, and direct the waywardnesses of
national energy, that they have a right to ask that none of their
distresses should be unrelieved, none of their weaknesses unwatched; and
that no grief, nor nakedness, nor peril, should exist for them, against
which the father's hand was not outstretched, or the father's shield
uplifted.[3]

[Note 3: Compare Wordsworth's Essay on the Poor Law Amendment Bill.
I quote one important passage: "But, if it be not safe to touch the
abstract question of man's right in a social state to help himself even
in the last extremity, may we not still contend for the duty of a
Christian government, standing _in loco parentis_ towards all its
subjects, to make such effectual provision that no one shall be in
danger of perishing either through the neglect or harshne