JOHN STUART MILL AND PRESENT-DAY LIBERALISM.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—You may possibly think worth reproducing some quotations from John Stuart Mill's " Representative
Government," which seem to throw into unusually clear light the difference between the point of view of true Liberals and of many of those who at the present day borrow that name. There are, Mill observes, two " states of the inclinations," differing in relative strength in different nations, one being "the desire to exercise power over others," and the other " disinclination to have power exercised over themselves " :—
" There are nations," he continues, "in whom the passion for governing others is so much stronger than the desire of personal independence that for the mere shadow of the one they are found
ready to sacrifice the whole of the other A government strictly limited in its powers and attributions, required to hold its hands from overmeddling, and to let most things go on without its assuming the part of guardian or director, is not to the taste
of such a people. In their eyes the possessors of authority can hardly take too much upon themselves, provided the authority itself is open to general competition These are the
elements of a people of plaeehunters where the more popular the institutions the more innumerable are the plates created, and the more monstrous the over-government exercised by all over each, and by the executive over all."—Chap. 4.
The " desire to exercise power over others " appears to be the most strongly marked characteristic of the so-called Liberal of to-day.—I am, Sir, &c., H. C.
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