Harold J. Laski

And let us remember, also, that even where the judge is prepared to do his duty, he cannot, in a period of excitement, count upon public opinion.

Nothing is clearer than the fact that those who hanged Mr Gordon during the Jamaica riots were guilty of murder.

The opinion of Chief Justice Cockburn could not have made the issue more clear; it is a landmark in the judicial history of freedom.

There have been, further, many occasions when breaches of fundamental principles of freedom, breaches which, on any showing, have been quite indefensible, have been followed at once by Acts of Indemnity.

Yet it is, I think, obvious that unless such breaches are definitely and deliberately punished, they will always occur on critical occasions.

At such times, it is impossible to trust those who are charged with the exercise of power; and only the knowledge that swift and certain punishment will follow its abuse will make our rulers attentive to the needs of freedom.

I speak the language of severity; and I am anxious that you should not think that the language of severity is that of the extremist.

Those of whom I speak had no excuse save ignorant prejudice and the blindness of passion.

You will see, therefore, why I cannot believe that constitutional expedients alone, however substantial, will prevent the invasion of liberty.

They will work just so long as people are determined they shall work, and no longer.

No class of men is so carefully trained as the judiciary to the habit of a balanced mind.

Yet if you examine the observations of judges in cases where their passions are deeply involved you will note how great is the effort they have to make to show tolerance to antagonistic views.

I conclude, therefore, that in general we shall not allow, as a society, the mechanisms of the state to serve the cause of freedom unless we approve the objects at which freedom aims.

For those habits are not in Nature, which teaches us that opinions we deem evil are fraught with death.

They come from our social heritage, and are part of a process the value of which we must relearn continuously if we are to preserve it.

That is the meaning of the famous maxim that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

It is why, also, it becomes necessary in each age to restate the case for freedom, if it is to be maintained.

I have argued that resistance to the encroachments of power is essential to freedom because it is the habit of power continuously, if it can, to enlarge the boundaries of its authority.

Is there, that is, a way in which the average citizen of the modern state can be persuaded that it is in his interest to be vigilant against those who would invade his rights?

Can it, further, be shown that such a temper in the citizen is likely, as it grows, to confer benefit upon the community as a whole?

I hazard the generalization that the more widespread the distribution of power in the state, the more decentralized its character, the more likely men are to be zealous for freedom.

It is the thesis that, in terms of historic experience, good government is always, in the end, both less valuable and less efficient than self-government.

I mean that, in general, rules imposed upon a society from above for its benefit are less effective to the end that they seek than rules which have grown naturally from below.

But the greater the degree in which we can realize it, the better for the community to which we belong.

But we cannot understand the eighteenth century, or its theories, unless we realize that its temper was still dominantly aristocratic.