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As it was, the situation was one of alarm for capital already invested a stake then of over 300 millions sterling in a country where more than half of the population were in almost open revolt against a Government commanding very large repressive forces, and resolved to maintain its stand.
Society is thus bound to remain divided into two hostile camps, and in such conditions freedom is a vain word. The Radical begins by demanding a greater extension of political rights, but he soon sees that the breath of liberty leads to the uplifting of the proletariat, and then he turns round, changes his opinions, and reverts to repressive legislation and government by the sword.
In the lower states law, penalties, coercion, compulsion, the strong hand, a sternly repressive public opinion, were the conditions on which the community was united and held together.
Its office is not purely repressive, to restrain violence, to redress wrongs, and to punish the transgressor. It has something more to do than to restrict our natural liberty, curb our passions, and maintain justice between man and man. Its office is positive as well as negative.
During the gathering of the populace, which she had witnessed, mingling unrecognized among the crowd, a female orator haranguing the mob from the lower windows of a café was pointed out to her, and she was assured that it was George Sand. During the repressive measures the administration was led to take she felt uncertain whether the arrest of Barbès might not be followed by her own.
The disappearance of the old almost princely power of the greater barons, completed by the repressive policy of Henry VII., with the redistribution of the vast monastic estates effected by his son, were the leading factors which changed the social and political centre of gravity.
In many towns furious rabbles at different times attacked the Jewish quarters, burnt the dwellings, and put the inmates cruelly to death, as at York, where hundreds perished during a riot in the reign of Richard I. King John by cruel measures extorted large sums from wealthy Jews. The Church was also their implacable enemy, securing many repressive enactments against them.
For while the majority of the Commission were in favor of gradual reforms, the minority advocated the continuation of the old repressive policy. Owing to these internal disagreements, the Commission was slow in submitting its conclusions to the Government. One more attempt was made to procrastinate the matter.
If there was a horse-race, we are told, "you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first." Despite all efforts of repressive legislation, games of chance are in vogue all over the country.
Here is a view of the State as far opposed as possible to that of Kautsky, who says truly that it is "a monster economic establishment, and its influence on the whole economic life of a nation to-day is already beyond the power of measurement." For Kautsky, the State is primarily economic and constructive; for Louis it is purely political and repressive.
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