Of principle, because State intervention was still commonly pictured as that system ...

Of principle, because State intervention was still commonly pictured as that system of State regulation of industry which Adam Smith had confuted. Of self-interest, because it does undoubtedly mean a restriction of a man's right to do what he will with his own.

Of sentiment, be-cause the intense dislike of interference and domiciliary visits which history had bred in us, took into its field the workpeople and the factory; and the religious, the economic, and the social codes all combined to emphasize the vital importance of individual effort, whether the prize was domestic comfort or heavenly joy. But experience tells, and by 1845 it was becoming evident that the queue between what the State may do and what it must leave alone had been drawn in the wrong place, and that there was a whole world of things where the individual simply could not help himself at all.

He could not build his own house, or even choose his own street. He could not dispose of his own sewage or educate his own children.

In Burke, Thoughts on Scarcity, 1795. Macaulay's mind the sphere of State interest now includes not only public order and defence, but public health, education, and the hours of labor.