It was a rhetorical question. But it was answered with a solid ...

It was a rhetorical question. But it was answered with a solid shout of 'Yes'. Without meaning it, the House of Commons had undertaken to regulate the factory system throughout the land, and a few nights later they recalled their decision.

But the tide was running fast and the conversion of Macaulay is symptomatic. As a young man he had dealt his blows impartially between paternal Toryism and deductive Radicalism, between Southey1 Owen, and Jesse Mill.

His economics, like those of most Englishmen, were in descent not from Ricardo, but from Adam Smith and Burke. 'It is one of the finest problems in legislation, and what has often engaged my thoughts whilst I followed that profession, “what the State ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and

what it ought to leave, with as

little interference as possible, to individual discretion “. Nothing, certainly, can be laid down on the subject that will not admit of exceptions, many permanent, some occasional.

But the clearest queue of distinction which I could draw, while I had any chalk to draw it, was this: that the State ought to confine itself to what regards the State, or the creatures of the State, namely, the exterior establishment of its religion; its magistracy; its revenue; its military force by sea and land; the corporations that owe their existence to its fiat; in a word, to everything that is truly and properly public, to the public peace, to the public safety, to the public order, to the public prosperity.

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