"A free nation," says Sir William Temple, "is that which has never been conquered, or thereby entered into any condition of subjection."[29] In this sense of freedom from foreign domination liberty is the immemorial boast of Britons. They never have been, or will be, slaves. They are, and they are determined to remain--so they proudly sing--free as the waves that wash their shores, free as the winds that sweep their hills. They are resolved that no alien tyrant shall plant his foot upon their necks. As in the Middle Ages they repudiated the claim of German Emperors and Ultramontane Popes to exercise political sovereignty over them; as in more modern times they resisted conquest by the Spaniard Philip and the Corsican Napoleon; even so would they resist to the extreme limit of endurance any attempt to-day to reduce them to servitude. The proposition that freedom in this sense of national independence is consistent with compulsory military service needs no demonstration at all. So far from there being any incompatibility between the two, it is probable that only by means of a manhood universally trained to the use of arms can the freedom of Britain and the integrity of the Empire be ultimately maintained. We shall almost certainly have to choose, not between national service and liberty, but between national service and destruction. FOOTNOTE: [29] Temple. _Works_ ii, p. 87. IV. LIBERTY AS SYNONYMOUS WITH RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT In a second and somewhat looser sense "Liberty is regarded as the equivalent of Parliamentary government."[30] We speak of one type of Constitution as "free" and of another type as "unfree." The so-called "free" type of government is that in which political power rests in the hands of the Democracy, whereas in "unfree" States the people are in subjection to a ruling person or class. From the point of view of the individual subject this distinction has no meaning at all. For the laws passed by a Democratic Parliament are coercive and compulsory in precisely the same manner and degree as are the laws of a despotic monarchy or a close oligarchy. There is, indeed, a "tyranny of the majority" which can be quite as oppressive to the individual as the tyranny of the one or the few, and much less easy to evade. From the point of view of the enfranchised community, however, the term "free" has a meaning, and its use can be defended. For if the electorate be regarded as a unit, akin to an organism, government becomes self-government, and any obligations which the community places upon itself by means of laws can be looked upon as self-limitations, imposed by free-will and capable of removal at any moment by the unfettered exercise of the power which imposed them. From this communal point of view, however, it is evident that national service involves no diminution of liberty. The community becomes not one whit less free because it decides to train itself in the use of arms and to mobilize