CHAPTER II. THE GROWTH OF FREE INDUSTRY AND ENTERPRISE. Influence of § 1. THE growth of Economic Freedom has been slow Early civili- and fitful. Early civilizations were necessarily zations. in warm climates because no great advance in culture can be made except where there is a considerable surplus above the bare necessaries of life; and climate. in a cold climate man's whole energies are absorbed in providing these necessaries, unless he is aided by accumulated wealth and knowledge. But a warm climate lowers energy and in consequence the great body of workers in the old civilizations of the East were of a submissive and unenterprising character; and were kept to their work by the discipline of the ruling castes. These ruling castes had generally come at no distant date from a more bracing climate, either in mountainous regions or in the distant North. They devoted themselves to war, to political and sacerdotal functions, and sometimes to art; but they avoided manual work, and left that to serfs and slaves. The manual labour classes scarcely even conceived the idea of freedom; but looked to custom as the great protector against arbitrary oppression. It is true that some customs were very cruel; Influence of custom. but if customs were merely cruel they speedily destroyed the lower classes and therefore also the upper classes who rested on them. And in consequence those races which have had a long history are also those whose customs have on the whole been kindly, and the good largely predominates over the evil in the records of the influence of custom on moral as well as physical well-being. Greek civilization was beautiful, and in many respects modern. But the Greeks, as well as the Romans Ancient who learnt much from them, regarded industry Greece and as belonging especially to slaves, and they did Rome. not anticipate the ethico-economic problems of modern life. § 2. The Teutonic races which overthrew the Roman Empire were slow to adopt the culture of the The Middle people whom they conquered; and the Western Ages. world, under their rule, seemed almost to have fallen back into barbarism. But the ruling classes respected hard work, and the working classes maintained freedom and independence of character. Meanwhile the Christian religion was proclaiming the nobility of all honest labour and the dignity of man as man. By slow degrees power passed into the hands of the industrial classes; and their well-being began to appear to the ruling classes as an important end in itself, and not merely as a necessary condition of political and military strength. Christianity. A view of society which was more modern in many respects was accepted by the groups of handicraftsmen The free who took the chief part in founding many of the towns. mediæval "free" cities. And though, as time went on, class distinctions showed themselves even here, yet the great body of the inhabitants frequently had the full rights of citizens, deciding for themselves the foreign and domestic policy of their city, and at the same time working with their hands and taking pride in their work. They organized themselves into Gilds, thus increasing their cohesion and educating themselves in self-government; and though the Gilds gradually became exclusive, and their trade-regulations ultimately retarded progress, yet they did excellent work before this deadening influence had shown itself. The citizens gained culture without losing energy; without neglecting their business, they learnt to take an intelligent interest in many things besides their business. They led the way in the fine arts, and they were not backward in those of war. They took pride in magnificent expenditure for public purposes; and they took equal pride in a careful husbanding of the public resources, in clear and clean State budgets, and in systems of taxes levied equitably and based on sound business principles. Thus they led the way towards modern industrial civilization; and if they had gone on their course undisturbed, and retained their first love of liberty and social equality, they would probably long ago have worked out the solutions of many social and economic problems which we are only now beginning to face. But after being long troubled by tumults and war, they at last succumbed to the growing power of the countries by which they were surrounded. For meanwhile the forces of feudalism had grown in strength and had at last been merged in the great monarchies, especially those of Spain, Austria and France; and they gradually wore out or destroyed the free cities, whose material strength rested on a much narrower basis. New forces promoting freedom. The Mediter § 3. But the hopes of progress were again raised by the invention of Printing, the Revival of Learning, the Reformation, and the discovery of the New World. The countries which took the lead in the new maritime adventure were those of the Spanish Peninsula. It seemed for a time as though the leadership of the world having settled first in the most easterly peninsula of the Mediterranean, and thence moved to ranean and the the middle peninsula, would settle again in that Atlantic. westerly peninsula which belonged both to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. But the power of industry had by this time become sufficient to sustain wealth and civilization in a northern climate. And the Spanish and Portuguese could not hold their own for long against the more sustained energy and the more generous spirit of the northern people; the colonists of England, Holland, and even France demanded and obtained far more freedom than those of Spain and Portugal. The early history of the people of Holland is indeed a brilliant romance. Founding themselves on fish Holland. ing and weaving, they built up a noble fabric 1 This chapter corresponds to, but is throughout much abridged from Principles I. II. men. CHAPTER III. THE GROWTH OF FREE INDUSTRY AND ENTERPRISE, CONTINUED. § 1. ENGLAND'S geographical position caused her to be peoThe character pled by the strongest members of the strongest of Englishraces of northern Europe; a process of natural selection brought to her shores those members of each successive migratory wave who were most daring and self-reliant. Her climate is better adapted to sustain energy than any other in the northern hemisphere. She is divided by no high hills, and no part of her territory is more than twenty miles from navigable water, and thus there was no material hindrance to freedom of intercourse between her different parts; while the strength and wise policy of the Norman and Plantagenet kings prevented artificial barriers from being raised by local magnates. As the part which Rome played in history is chiefly due to her having combined the military strength of a great empire with the enterprise and fixedness of purpose of an oligarchy residing in one city, so England owes her greatness to her combining, as Holland had done on a smaller scale before, much of the free temper of the medieval city with the strength and broad basis of a nation. The towns of England had been less distinguished than those of other lands; but she assimilated them more easily than any other country did, and so gained in the long run most from them. The custom of primogeniture inclined the younger sons of noble families to seek their own fortunes; and, having no special caste privileges, they mixed readily with the common |