III.

The third characteristic of Liberalism is that, taking its stand, in conjunction with Conservatism, on the institutions our fathers have transmitted to us, it declares for Individualism against Collectivism, or State action, in the businesses of common life.

It is very difficult to state exactly what things should be done by the State and what should be left to private persons. We have heard much of late about delimiting the spheres of Russia and Britain in Central Asia, and about delimiting the spheres of rival European nations in Africa. It is more difficult, we suspect, and also more important, to delimit the respective spheres of the State and of the individual. Some things or businsses belong entirely to the individual, and others either to the State or to the individual, as circumstances determine. To the State undoubtedly belong the defence of the country by means of armies and navies, the preservation of peace and order inside, the protection of life and property. In the intermediate or debatable region between the State's sphere and the individual's, there are such matters as poor-relief, religion, education, post office, telegraph, railways, and the supplying of light, of water, of stimulants. In this debatable region, some enlightened Statesmen are in favour of State action, while others equally enlightened are against; and probably as good arguments are adducible for the one side as for the other. Leaving the borderland which separates Collectivism from Individualism, we hold that all the other innumerable and varied businesses of ordinary life belong exclusively to the sphere of the individual. And we affirm that there are many departments of business undertaken by the New Zealand Government which ought to have been forbidden to them, and where they assuredly are trespassers. Banking, for instance, is not a business which Government should undertake. Neither is insurance, fire or life. Neither is money-lending, nor the buying and selling of private land, nor the taking over the coastal steamship traffic, etc., etc.

The ever-growing encroachment of our Government on the fields which should be left exclusively to Individualism, marks them of from the true Liberals. Their Collectivist policy cannot but result in deteriorating the character of the people, in undermining their highest and noblest qualities, and in making them the humble servants and lickspittles of a batch of successful politicians. The page 7 true Liberals consequently condemn Collectivism and all its works, and maintain the ancestral rights and liberties of the people. Their policy is to develop and improve the nature and character of the individual citizen, and to keep him from being degraded into a bondsman of the Ministry of the day. This noble policy rests on the irrefragable grounds:

That individual liberty, in opposition to Collectivism, is the best school in which mankind can be educated;

That it is the soil in which self-reliance and energy and enterprise and all the higher and more heroic qualities thrive best; and

That it is in the clear sunshine and open air of liberty that human nature receives its richest and noblest development.