This position is defended by an appeal to the fact that the citizen is most energetic and intelligent where he is most free to act for himself. No American is as helpless before pestilence or famine as a Russian peasant, or as afraid to go to a burning house until summoned by the police. A despotism may begin with a strong army; but it ends, like the Roman Empire, in the weakness which it has brought on by crushing the spirit of its soldiers. Strong governments make weak men. Never was there a mightier army than was given by the French Republic to Napoleon. Industrial prosperity depends even more closely than military glory on the energy of men who have been at liberty to think and act freely. People develop most vigorously where they are least meddled with. The average man knows much more than his rulers do about his own private business; and he is active to promote it in ways which secure the general welfare. Great stress is laid not only in _Social Statics_ but in Spencer's book on _The Man versus the State_, and in several essays, on the many times that the British Government has increased an evil by trying to cure it. What is said about its extravagance will not surprise any American who remembers what vast sums are squandered by Congress. The post-office is often spoken of as proof that our Government could run our railroads; but one of Boston's best postmasters said, "No private business could be managed like this without going into bankruptcy." The British Government has a monopoly of the telegraph; and introduction of the telephone was very difficult in consequence. In Victoria, the Postmaster-General has abused his privileges so much as to appoint a "sporting agent" to telegraph the results of a horse-race; and this same highly protectionist colony has had laws forbidding any shop to be open after 7 P.M., except on Saturday, and any woman to work more than forty-eight hours a week in any factory. How governments interfered in former centuries with people's right to feed, clothe, employ, and amuse themselves, seems almost inconceivable at present.