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Equal natural ability should command an equal reward in all occupations; assuming that differences in cost of training can be ignored. The reward must, of course, be interpreted not in terms of money only but of "real wages," with allowance for the varying amenities of different tasks. Now it was here that the extreme advocates of laissez-faire made one of their cardinal mistakes.
Even Cobden was censured because, in the French treaty of 1861, he had departed from the free trade theory. The doctrine of laissez-faire, carried to extremes, meant that the colonies should be allowed to cut adrift. But the practical English mind saw the sense and statesmanship of a British American union, and the tone of the colonial secretary changed.
Every caste system illustrates this principle; you find it in Plato's Republic and in Aristotle, in the feudal ideal, in the circles of Dante's Paradise, in the bureaucratic type of socialism, and in laissez-faire, to an amazing degree in syndicalism, guild socialism, anarchism, and in the system of international law idealized by Mr. Robert Lansing.
Uncritically held, the stereotype not only censors out much that needs to be taken into account, but when the day of reckoning comes, and the stereotype is shattered, likely as not that which it did wisely take into account is ship-wrecked with it. That is the punishment assessed by Mr. Bernard Shaw against Free Trade, Free Contract, Free Competition, Natural Liberty, Laissez-faire, and Darwinism.
His affectation of a lazy, trifling, indifferent manner, his often-quoted remonstrance to impetuous would-be reformers, "Can't you let it alone?" had earned for him some angry disapproval, and caused him to be regarded as the embodiment of the detested laissez-faire principle. But under his mask of nonchalance he hid some noble qualities, which at this juncture served Queen and country well.
The application of such a system to legislation and public policy was obvious. It carried with it the principle of laissez-faire. The doctrine of international free trade, albeit the most conspicuous of its applications, was but one case under the general law.
But it would certainly be far greater than it is if the principle of laissez-faire ruled supreme in these affairs. Fortunately it does not, and has never done so. Even before the days of free elementary education, the endowment of education was not unknown.
Britain was, in fact, undergoing a great secular change of policy. She had been driven, step by step, from the old position of supremacy and authority. As in commerce the security of protection had been abandoned for the still doubtful advantages of free trade, so, in the colonies, the former cast-iron system of imperial control had been abandoned for one of laissez-faire and self-government.
This set of opinions is known as the laissez-faire theory of the functions of government, the view that the duties of government should be reduced to the smallest possible number, and that it should keep out of the economic sphere altogether.
At length the young wife got tired of the after-breakfast discussion, which consisted of about a dozen different plans for the day severally put up and knocked down again each contradicting the other. The mild laissez-faire of country life in a large family was quite too much for her patience; she longed to get up and shake everybody into common-sense and decision.
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