Protection is the natural inborn creed of every official body; free trade is an extrinsic idea alien to its notions, and hardly to be assimilated with life; and it is easy to see how an accomplished critic, used to a free and active life, could thus describe the official.
Bagehot contrasts the protective instincts of officials with the principles of free trade, suggesting a fundamental conflict.
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He could have found the truth as a statesman just as he found it when a judge; but he never did find it.
We have thus a whole group of ancient republics of non-Aryan race, and one which, being more ancient than the classical republics, could not have borrowed from or imitated them.
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