The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

FOUNDATIONS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS 3

It appeals to the English character for a very good reason. Notwithstanding a certain intellectual placidity, if not downright laziness, the Englishman is no fool. His métier is not to think but to be. We Irish were acutely aware, when the English were sitting on our heads, that they were definitely in a state of being, and not, like Gandhi, in a state of contemplation. In achieving this extraordinary state of being the English have stood doggedly on two assumptions. They have profoundly believed in liberty—liberty of thought, liberty of speech and religious liberty. This acceptance of liberty goes back beyond the Reformation to the medieval yeomen. The Reformation crystallised it; Cromwell widened it and gave it spiritual content; the Great Industry injected it into politics.

And the second assumption has been an abiding belief in the sanctity of property. Should liberty invade property, then liberty must be restrictedof course to preserve true liberty. For when liberty touches property it instantly becomes licence. No well regulated State would permit that. A dilemma; yet, after all, capable of solution. Accordingly from the earliest Parliamentary days, the English have ever been on the alert to keep their propertied interests distinct from political developments. By all means let the politicians proclaim liberty and yet more liberty, but if political action by ill chance touched on property, then the pious prayer rose to Heaven from a million propertied hearts: —‘‘ Thank God