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"PRINCIPLE" and "liberty" are fascinating words, but, like religion, they have many meanings. They are so pleasing to the public ear that they are freely used in the advocacy of every cause. The Tsar and his ministers, who hang hundreds of persons in a single day without trial, and bury them by moon-light, talk of "principle" and "liberty" with as much zeal as would the advocates of democracy and equal rights. Nor is this necessarily an evidence of insincerity. People generally think through their interests, not always their individual interest, but through the interests of their social, economic, or political group. The meaning, therefore, of such phrases as "principle" and "liberty" is mainly a matter of interpretation, which depends very largely on the point of view.

When the English middle class wanted the franchise, they became the exponents of the principle of political liberty and democratic representation. Their arguments read very much like the Declaration of Independence; but after they had acquired the suffrage (by the passage of the First Reform Bill) their point of view changed. When the laborers asked for the suffrage, the middle class opposed it on the principle of property rights with as much vigor as their own enfranchisement had been opposed by the aristocracy. Their point of view had changed with the shifting of their interests.

This is as true in the field of economics as in politics and government. Under the leadership of John Bright and Richard Cobden, the English Liberals were the bitterest

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