Notwithstanding his retirement to Oates, and his incessant literary activity, Locke never lost his interest in politics, and, as the friend and admirer of men like Monmouth, Somers, and Clarke, he must always have exercised a considerable influence on the policy of the Whig party. In the spring of 1695 he seems to have taken a primary share in determining a measure which for a time divided the Houses of Lords and Commons, and which must have enlisted his warmest sympathies. This was the repeal of the Licensing Act. The English Press had never been wholly free, and the Act of Charles II., which was still in force, was peculiarly stringent. Occasion had been taken by the Commons, when it was proposed, in the session of 1694-95, to renew certain temporary statutes, to strike out this particular statute from the list. The Lords dissented, and re-inserted it. The Commons refused to accept the amendment. A conference of both Houses took place, Clarke of Chipley being the leading manager on the part of the Commons, and the result was that the Lords waived their objections. The paper of reasons tendered by the Commons' managers on this occasion is said, by a writer in the _Craftsman_ for Nov. 20, 1731, to have been drawn up by Locke. As Clarke was one of his most intimate friends, and as the Reasons correspond pretty closely with a paper of criticisms on the Act written by Locke, this statement is probably true, so far at least as concerns their substance. The arguments employed are mainly practical, consisting of objections in detail, and pointing out inconveniences, financial and otherwise, which resulted from the operation of the Act. But these arguments, "suited to the capacity of the parliamentary majority," did, as Macaulay has remarked, what Milton's _Areopagitica_ had failed to do, and a vote, "of which the history can be but imperfectly traced in the Journals of the House, has done more for liberty and for civilization than the Great Charter or the Bill of Rights." Locke's paper of criticisms, which is published _in extenso_ in _Lord King's Life_, asks very pertinently "why a man should not have liberty to print whatever he would speak, and be answerable for the one, just as he is for the other, if he transgresses the law in either." He then offers a suggestion, to take the place of the licensing provisions:--"Let the printer or bookseller be answerable for whatever is against law in the book, as if he were the author, unless he can produce the person he had it from, which is all the restraint ought to be upon printing." It appears from this paper that the monopoly of the Stationers' Company had become so oppressive that books printed in London could be bought cheaper at Amsterdam than in St. Paul's Church Yard. Except for the few monopolists, the book-trade had been ruined in England. But then, he reflects, "our ecclesiastical laws seldom favour trade, and he that reads this Act with attention