The Liberal Past BOOKS OF THE DAY

By J. L. HAMMOND

IT is significant that in some countries the fear of tyranny and reaction has created a Popular Front and that in all it has brought the thinkers of the Left into a closer sympathy. This movement reflects first the appreciation of the gravity of the threat that Fascism offers to popular self government, and secondly the appreciatiOn of the truth that this threat challenges principles held both by Liberals and by Socialists. It is true that in practice Liberal legislation and Liberal ideas in England have long been influenced by Socialist teaching.

Nobody who has read such a book as Mr. Keynes' The End of Laissez Faire can think that, except for a few distinguished survivors, Liberal thinking is still governed by the economic ideas that are so brilliantly dissected by Professor Laski in his new volume. But it is a law of nature in polities that men should quarrel most with those whose ideas most resemble their Own, and the fact that Liberals adopted and applied—in some eases with great success—ideas that are Socialist only made their disagreement more acute. If therefore today Liberalism in its decline receives more respect and sympathy from Socialists than it ever received in its prosperity, the reason is that, just as Liberals realised that there were truths in Socialism that they had to use in legislation, Socialists now realise that there were truths in Liberalism that they have to defend in defending themselves. This has been brought out very clearly in thepresent crisis. It is safe to say that most Socialists would find .that they had more in common with Hobhouse's book on Liberalism, which Ruggiero considered " the best formulation of the new English Liberalism," than with Mr. Bernard Shaw's opinion of Mussolini. .

Some philosopher has suggested that the great religions of the world are all suited to different ages in the life of man and that education ought to be planned with this in mind. Christianity, he held, implied too much resignation and patience for the young. The true method was to bring up a boy as a Mahommedan and then later, when he was less fiery and assertive, to make a Christian of him. I forget where Buddhism found its place in this interesting scheme. Professor Laski's book gives the impression that though he thinks Liberalism has exhausted its usefulness, he would not quarrel with the view held by some who would not call themselves Liberal in any party sense : the view that every- body ought at some time to have been a Liberal. For he lays great stress on the importance of the Liberal movement in the development of civilisation. " All in all the advent of the middle class to power was one of the most beneficent revolu- tions in history. No doubt, also, its cost has been very great ; through its coming, we lost the power to use certain mediaeval principles, the recovery of which would, in my view, represent solid human gain. But no one can move from the fifteenth to the sixteenth, still more to the seven- teenth century, without the sense of wider and more creative horizons, the recognition that there is a greater regard for the inherent worth of human personality, a sensitiveness to the infliction of unnecessary pain, a zeal for truth for its own sake, a willingness to experiment in its service, which arc all parts of a social heritage which would have been infinitely poorer without them." It would be interesting to hear Professor LaSki argue this view with Tagore, who held that Europe owed all her greatness in humanity to the period of discipline which preceded the age of intellect and Science, and that the cost of this revolution, which Professor Laski calls very great, was in fact too great.- So far as English politics are concerned, one of the most illuminating books on this question is that remarkable Prize essay on The Rise of European Liberalism. By Harold Laski. (Allen and-Unwin. 7s. 6d.)

" English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century " with which Dr. Gooch dazzled the examiners for the Thirlwall Prize in 1897.

There is no space in a short review to touch on the immense learning to which Professor Laski contrives to do justice in this masterly analysis. An idea of the range that he covers may be formed from one sentence : " To the evolution of Liberalism have gone contributions from men unacquainted with, often hostile to, its aims : from Macelnavelli and Calvin, from Luther and Copernicus, from Henry VIII and Thomas More in one century ; from Richelieu and Louis XIV, from Hobbes and Julien, from Pascal and Bacon in another." One of his best chapters is his discussion of French Liberal thought in the eighteenth century, a subject on which Mr. Kingsley Martin made a valuable contribution a few years ago. Mr. Laski says justly that " the creative centre of liberal thought in the eighteenth century is in France." and he has an admir- able description of the difference between France, "a society in ferment," and England, where the " average Englishman was at peace even when he was at war. He felt that he had made his bargain with fate." Not the least interesting of his pages are those that discuss some neglected aspects of

Bamave's exposition of the history of the French Revolution

in which Mr. Laski finds an anticipation of Marx. Ile describes Adam Smith as " giving the business man his letters of credit " —and he has many other happy phrases about his economics. But he rather overlooks another side of Adam Smith's teaching ; the relationship brought out by Mr. Hirst between his ideas of free trade and his desire for peace. Adam like Turgot, was anxious to convince his age that the principle of monopoly by which all European nations were guided in their colonial policy and inspired in their colonial wars was " the great illusion." He meant to strike a blow at economic nationalism at a time when that dangerous fierce

was finding a larger and larger field for its influenm. lie gave the business man his letters of credit, but he refused him something that in his ustenlightenment he wanted still more. For he wished to put an end to business wars.

The least satisfactory chapter is the last. For here Mr. Laski has given too little attention to a questioni that possesses a special interest and urgency today : the right of free sweet'.

Consequently, lie passes over what most people will consider the chief service that Liberalism has rendered to democracy.

When Pitt was passing his Treason and Sedition Bills through

the House of Commons. with the general approval of the country, a handful of Liberals, who had everything to lose

in reputation and popularity by opposing Close Bills, defended

the right of criticism. They were defending not merely men of their own class but poor and obscure workmen. Fox attacked Bishop Horsley for his famous declaration that the

mass of the people had nothing to do with the laws but to obey them, asserting that his religion should have taught him

the natural equality of man. He expressly denounerd the idea that free speech should be confined 'to men with a forty- shilling qualification for the franchise. The tradition that the Liberals created in opposing those Bills is as vital to t he health and freedom of a society as any of the truths to which Liberalism was blinded by its limiting ideas alma

property and class. And in the present state of Europe it is

pertinent to recall Fox's defence of the right of asylum against Napoleim, for he laid dOwn principles on which a Labour Chwernment more than a century later Was too timid to act. This omission in Mr. Laski's valuable book is to be regretted, because, if it is important that Liberals should realise what was bad in the Liberalism Mi. Laski describes, it is not less important that Socialists should realise what was good in it.