ABSTRACT
State Intervention.—The strong prejudice against State action created by the teaching of the economists and the Benthamites was gradually broken down in the course of the nineteenth century. Englishmen, with their practical common sense, refused to let their hands be tied by a mere theory, when the obvious remedy for a palpable abuse was a legislative measure. Philanthropists were revolted by the heart-lessness of a doctrine which taught that social evils were inevitable or at least incurable. Writers like Southey, Dickens, Carlyle and Ruskin headed a literary crusade against laissez-faire. And finally the philosophers came to the aid of the humanitarians and provided them with a theory to oppose to the harsh logic of the individualists. The great argument against State interference had always been the restraint it imposed on personal liberty. Now the flank of this objection was turned by the Oxford philosopher, T. H. Green (1836–82), who argued that State intervention was often necessary to remove the social obstacles to personal freedom, freedom being interpreted not as absence of restraint but as the full expression of personality. The neo-Hegelian philosophy which reigned in the British universities at the close of the nineteenth century took a much more exalted view of the State and its functions than the utilitarian theory which it superseded. And the movement of thought was reflected in the attitude of the economists. The general presumption against the wisdom of State action was abandoned.
