The Labor enquirer., 1888-03-10
Spencer's Somewhat Anarch-
istic Utterances in Re-
gard Thereto.
GOVERNMENT" MUST CEASI
When Men Become Possessed Of the
Higher Sense OF Justice to
Their Fellows.

rOf tno ENQUIRER.
During the trial of the Chicago
anarchists, and at different periods
since then, as when the Illinois
supreme court decision was rem
dered, and when they were hung,
rhe press, preachers and others
roundly abused the anarchists ask
ing, "How dare these creatures
lay their impious hands on our
glorious constitution" At an
other time they would say, They
are low people, they have no
respect for law and order" A
great many people who have given
the subject no thought, think that
this is really so and that worship
of government is virtue. Let us
see what Herbert Spencer the
greatest living philosopher says
about government, law and order:
Conduct has to be ruled from
without or from within. If the
rule from within is not efficient,
there must exist a supplementary
rule from without. If. on the
other hand, all men are properly
ruled from within, government
becomes needless. and all men are
perfectly free. Now the chief
faculty of self-rule being the
moral sense, the degree of free
dom in their institutions which
any given people can bear, will be
proportionate to the diffusion of
this moral sense amongst them.
And only whenits inAuenceg greatly
predominates can so large an
installment of freedom as de-
mocracy become possible.
ut is a mistake to assume that
government must last forever. 1t
is not essential, it is incidental.
AS civilization advances govern
ment decays. We have seen that
government is essentially immoral.
Iii is the offspring of evil, bearing
about all the marks of its parent
age. 1t is strong, or as we say
despotic, when crime is great, and
there is more liberty, that is less
government, as crime diminishes,
and governments must cease, for
very lack of objects on which to
perform its function. Not only
does magisterial power exist be-
cause of evil but BY evil. Violence
is employed to maintain it; and
all violence involves criIninality;
soldiers, policemen, jailors;-
swords, batons, fetters, are instru-
ments for inhicting pain and all
inAicting pain is in the abstract
wrong. The state employs evil
weapons to subiugate evil. and is
alike contaminated by the objects
with which it works.
THE proposition is, that in pro-
portion as the members of a COM
munity are barbarous in the same
proportion, will they reverence
authority. Equally abundant ev-
idence exists that the prevalence
of theft is similarly associated
with a predominance of the loyalty
producing faculty" Here Spen-
Ger quotes history to prove his
assertions, and winds up with the
following: Between these days
and ours, the gradual decline of
loyalty as shown in the extinction
of feudal relationship, in the
abandonment of the divine right
of kings" and in the comparative
leniency with which treason is
now punished-has accompanied
an equally gradual increase of
honesty. By how much men are
still dehcient in respect for each
sthers rights. by so much are they
still penetrated with respect for
authority; and we may even trace
|; in existing parties the constant
!. ratio preserved between these
characteristics. 1t has been shown
for instance. that the unskilled
laborers of London. who, instead
of entertaining violently demo
cratic opinions, appear to have nc
political opinions whatever. or. I
they think at all, rather lean towarc
the maintenance of things a.