Principles of western civilisation

436 WESTERN CIVILISATION CHAP.

capital to labour within the limits of industry, the Manchester school consistently held it to be no function of the State to interfere between the adult employed and the employer in that condition of “free contract” which, it was asserted, prevailed in a state of Jazssez-fatre competition within the State. Similarly, carrying this idea into the relations to each other of industries, still within the limits of the State, it was held to be no function of Government to interfere with the results obtained in the conflict between rival industries in the same condition of uncontrolled competition. In both cases all criticism was met with the confident, but, as we have seen, entirely unfounded assertion that the tendency of all economic evils was to cure themselves if simply left alone to the free play of the forces of selfinterest. This was the attitude which we have now to see carried one stage farther, to its last and highest application, in that theory of international trade which, allowing for all outward exceptions, has dominated the consciousness of the Englishspeaking world, and, through it, that of our civilisation in general, for the greater part of the epoch in which we are living.

In the larger world of international relations the principle of non-intervention or of non-responsibility as asserted by the Jdazssez-fatre school yielded a singularly clear and consistent attitude. No country, it was asserted in effect, had, as a general principle, any concern with the internal affairs of other peoples, or with the character of the Government, or with the standards of conduct or of social development which prevailed. What was desired was simply the removal of all barriers to trade and