ABSTRACT
All moralists might perhaps agree that a good government is one that secures the good of the governed; and if we agree that in a particular case a government is charged with the care not of a country or a State but of a people, we may say confidently that the moral function of that government is to secure the true good of that people. Success in exercising this moral function will then depend on two things: whether the government sees, or instinctively pursues, what is truly the good of the people, and whether it is intelligent and courageous enough to secure, in the circumstances of the time, as much of that good as possible.
