The remaining question I wish to discuss in this context is the right of the state over associations the purpose of which is the overthrow of the existing social order. What powers here ought the state to possess? At what point can it interfere? Has it what may be termed a preventive capacity, a right to prevent the development of associations the natural tendency of which will be an attempt at such overthrow? Or should its jurisdiction be limited to punishment for overt acts? Obviously the quality of liberty depends very largely upon the powers we give the state in this realm. I take it as elementary that the state has a right to protect itself from attack. It must, as a state, assume that its life is worth preserving. It must demand that changes in its organization be the outcome of peaceful persuasion and not the consequence of violent assault. A state must, therefore, assume that its duty to maintain peace and security lies at the very root of its existence. The liberty which associations enjoy must therefore be set in the context that they cannot have a liberty to overthrow the state. To that extent, any denial of freedom to them is justified. But what are the limits within which that denial must work. The world today is littered with organizations that are denied a legal existence and suppressed at any opportunity. The existence of a Communist party is denied by Lithuanian law; the Peasants’ Party in Jugoslavia was formally dissolved; Russian principle seems to be the imprisonment or exile of members of any organization which can be suspected of counter-revolutionary tendencies. We must, I think, begin with the principle that a government is not entitled to suppress associations the beliefs of which alone are subversive of the established order. For, otherwise, persecution will be built, not on fact, but on suspicion that facts may one day emerge, not on overt acts, but on principles of faith which are in truth only dangerous when they are expressed in practice. A society might be formed, for instance, to discuss and propagate the principles of Tolstoyan anarchy; I do not think any government has legitimate ground for interference with it. The time for that interference comes only when, outside the specific categories of peaceful persuasion, men have moved to action which cannot logically be interpreted as other than a determination to overthrow the social order.