illustrate our contention that, though it be more altruistic to lend gratis than to lend at interest, it is yet in countless cases absolutely legitimate and innocent to take the interest. It is more altruistic to build a house for a man as a present than to charge him 5s. per day for your work; but is even the Highest Ethic to condemn a bricklayer who demands his hire? If we reduce the argument to this form, everybody sees at once the absurdity and immorality of demanding altruism in all cases and irrespectively of the conditions; but between 5 per cent. interest on the hire of wealth-not the hire of money qua money as Mr. Rockell asserts-and 5s. per day as the hire of bricklayers' work, there is no difference in kind at all. In one case we hire the use of a man's labor to create wealth for us; in the other we hire the use of the wealth which his labor has already created.

It is often assumed that there is something peculiarly cruel in interest, because, in demanding it, we are taking advantage of the needs of another. But this-though a possible argument for Communism-is no argument against interest qua interest. Our tailor and our baker take advantage of our needs every time that they send in their bills for breeches and bread, and the comfort with which they live is in direct proportion to the number of "needy" people whom they can lure into their shops. Yet we never dream of reprobating these useful tradesmen !

But it is still urged-the peculiarity of gains by interest is that they are made by rich men at the expense of the poor. But this feature is in no wise characteristic of interest qua interest; and the charge is, as a matter of fact, largely untrue even now. But even were the charge literally true at the present day, the practice of lending at interest would not thereby be condemned as a practice essentially and of very nature bad. Even if all tailors habitually supplied only the poor with breeches-rich men being Highlanders, we suppose that fact would not prove that tailors ought to work gratis. But really, as we have said, this charge against lenders at interest is already untrue, for borrowers are often far richer than lenders, and yet

borrow because they have opportunities of employing as capital the wealth which, distributed among 100 or 1,000 poor holders, could not be productively employed. How many widows and orphans are solely dependent upon their modest income of £100 per year drawn from consols, or other investments; and how many struggling clerks and tradesmen and even "6 'workingmen" are able to spend their old age in simple independence because they yearly receive the interest on their savings? It is not even now true-and we trust that it may every year become less true-that interest is, in practice, always a tax levied by the rich upon the poor.

But then the objector, again shifting his ground, will say that at all events the greater part of the national interest is payable to rich men, and that anyhow it is wrong for them to thrive upon the needs of others; and with this statement we both agree and disagree. We too condemn—and that as heartily as anyone-the conduct of most rich men; but we condemn them, not as lenders-at-interest but, as selfishly using—or abusing -the wealth which they are so lucky as to possess. We condemn them, not for lending at interest but, for employing their wealth on their own gratification. We hold, as is indicated plainly enough in "Towards Utopia" and in our earlier "Economic Essays", that the man with a million a year should spend on himself only a few hundreds annually; and that the whole bulk of his wealth should be utilised in "good works". Whether he can best serve the cause of humanity by "capitalising" the whole of his wealth-with the exception of a sum sufficient to secure him his few hundreds annually-and devoting this to some scheme for permanently extinguishing poverty in one or more districts; or, whether he can do better by so devoting his annual income of a million; is purely and simply a question of administrative detail. Undoubtedly one mode of doing most excellent work would consist in lending to co-operations of workmen, without interest, sums sufficient to enable them to purchase factories, e.g.,

1 Sometime since we read, in one of the Reviews, an interesting account of such artisans' investments of savings.

and so become workmen and capitalists in one; but, on the other hand, if he charge them interest, he may stimulate them to yet greater activity; he will set an example that even dollar-worshippers may follow, when they find such investments pay; and anyhow he will be able to assist all the more. But our point is that anyhow his behavior does not affect the morality of taking interest. Interest or no interest, he is noble if he use his wealth for others, ignoble if he use it for himself.

And now, having said our say, having shown how clear a recrudescence of economic mediævalism may be found in the writings of those whom Mr. Rockell represents, we await his reply, anxious to discover whether he will admit the cogency of our arguments, or detect in them some fatal fallacy that has escaped ourself. In either case, whether we convert him or he convert us, both of us, as well as one or two readers of the FREE REVIEW, will be the gainers. We would only add in conclusion that we have intentionally abstained from attacking or defending either Individualism, Collectivism, or Communism; for that is a subject far too wide to be tackled in an appendix to a discussion on interest; whilst we hope, at no distant date, to devote an essay to that subject by itself. If the theory of Communism be adopted, it were waste of time and ink and paper to discuss the morality of interest, or of any other form of gain or profit; but if Communism be rejected, if some degree of profit be allowed as legitimate, then the innocence of interest qua interest seems to necessarily follow. What we do object to most emphatically is the fallacious severance of interest from profits and wages generally; what we contend is that interest is simply one form of profit or hire, neither more nor less legitimate or illegitimate than others.

F. H. PERRY COSTE.

'Like the several French societies, to read of whose success makes one's heart bound with pride and joy.

I. THE FORMULA OF LIBERTY THEORETICALLY CONSIDERED.

ALTHOUGH much has been written by controversialists. on the subject of social liberty, I am not aware that there is any consensus of opinion either as to the formula by which liberty can be described, the concrete conditions which constitute liberty, or as to the principle on which we must act, in society as it exists today, in order to produce the maximum amount of liberty.

The term liberty, too, is often used to denote absence of governmental control-not, of course, necessarily meaning absence of all governmental control, but absence in certain spheres. But mere absence of governmental control does not necessarily constitute liberty. This will appear plainly enough as we proceed to show what is a true conception of liberty. How loosely and in what a contradictory manner the term is used may be seen by noticing first the title of "A Plea for Liberty ", and then examining its contents. On the title-page, liberty means mere absence of governmental regulation, which is put forth as the best medium by which order may arise in society; yet this order in society is the very thing that constitutes liberty-a thesis which is recognised over the whole field of philosophy. So much, indeed, is this thesis recognised, that Mr. J. H. Levy, in a discussion with me, was at first inclined to doubt that the term liberty was used in the other sense-in the sense of absence of governmental control.

By liberty, then, we mean order in society. But what constitutes an orderly society? On this point much is being written at the present time; and, as far as I can see, there is room for much more to be written in the future. A long time since Kant laid it down that:

Everyone may seek his own happiness in the way that seems good to himself, providing that he infringe not such

freedom of others to strive after a similar end as is consistent with the freedom of all according to a possible general law."

Herbert Spencer says:

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'Everyone has a right to do whatsoever he wills, provided that in the doing thereof he infringe not the equal right of any other."

This is the formula of liberty, and the law of society expressed by it is called the law of equal freedom. It is supposed to express the conditions of order in societyjustice; and it is supposed at the same time to be a principle upon which we may act in society to-day. Yet a moment's consideration ought to show us that this formula cannot give us the conditions of absolute justice which is to come, and at the same time be a principle upon which we can unhesitatingly act, or even by which we can unquestionably test our actions, in such a transitional state of society as we have at present. Says Herbert Spencer :

"As now carried on, life hourly sets the claims of present self against the claims of future self, and hourly brings individual interests face to face with the interests of other individuals, taken singly or as associated. In many such cases the decisions can be nothing more than compromises; and ethical science, here necessarily empirical, can do no more than aid in making compromises that are the least objectionable."

Again :

"While war continues and injustice is done between societies, there cannot be anything like complete justice within each society. Militant organisation, no less than militant action, is irreconcilable with pure equity; and the inequality inevitably ramifies throughout all social relations."

As an abstract statement of what is a desirable state of society I shall have little to add to or to take from this formula of liberty; although, even as a statement of what is abstractly a desirable end, it is decidedly faulty. Spencer himself tells us that the ideal state is one in which no one has desires but those that can be fulfilled without transgressing the equal rights of others. But then this state should be expressed as one in which everyone would do as he would like without interfering with the rights of others, and might be a totally different state of society from one in which everyone would do as he would like provided