you, in direct defiance of all the principles of free trade,
interfere between us?" This reasoning, Sir, is exactly of a piece
with the reasoning of the honourable Member for Montrose, and of my
honourable friend the Member for Sheffield. If the noble earl will
allow me to make a defence for him, I believe that he would answer the
objection thus: "I hold," he would say, "the sound doctrine of free
trade. But your doctrine of free trade is an exaggeration, a caricature
of the sound doctrine; and by exhibiting such a caricature you bring
discredit on the sound doctrine. We should have nothing to do with the
contracts between you and your tenants, if those contracts affected only
pecuniary interests. But higher than pecuniary interests are at stake.
It concerns the commonwealth that the great body of the people should
not live in a way which makes life wretched and short, which enfeebles
the body and pollutes the mind. If, by living in houses which resemble
hogstyes, great numbers of our countrymen have contracted the tastes
of hogs, if they have become so familiar with filth and stench and
contagion, that they burrow without reluctance in holes which would turn
the stomach of any man of cleanly habits, that is only an additional
proof that we have too long neglected our duties, and an additional
reason for our now performing them."

Secondly, I say that where the public morality is concerned it may be
the duty of the State to interfere with the contracts of individuals.
Take the traffic in licentious books and pictures. Will anybody deny
that the State may, with propriety, interdict that traffic? Or take the
case of lotteries. I have, we will suppose, an estate for which I
wish to get twenty thousand pounds. I announce my intention to issue a
thousand tickets at twenty pounds each. The holder of the number which
is first drawn is to have the estate. But the magistrate interferes; the
contract between me and the purchasers of my tickets is annulled; and
I am forced to pay a heavy penalty for having made such a contract. I
appeal to the principle of free trade, as expounded by the honourable
gentlemen the Members for Montrose and Sheffield. I say to you, the
legislators who have restricted my liberty, "What business have you to
interfere between a buyer and a seller? If you think the speculation
a bad one, do not take tickets. But do not interdict other people from
judging for themselves." Surely you would answer, "You woul