Suppose, though the supposition is a very improbable one, that the Home Secretary had directed the police to put down every form of picketing and to arrest every one who counselled the free labourers to desert their employment, the strike would come at once to an end.

Suppose on the other hand--the supposition is also a wild one--that the Home Secretary had declined to protect the rights of the free labourers, that the troops had been withdrawn, and that the police had been inactive; suppose, in short, that the Government had been careless to maintain order.

The Trade Unionists would at once have become supreme, and freedom of contract, as well as liberty of person, would have been at once abolished.

Even in England then the power to exercise our rights as citizens has its source in the constant, though unobserved, intervention of the executive power.
What is true of England is truer still of countries where the sphere of the administration is more widely extended than with us, and what is true of every civilised country is truest of all of Ireland.

Ireland is a country where the sphere of the administration is large, and where it will probably be increased.