4407 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY POLITICAL AND SOCIAL BY GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L. 66 AUTHOR OF THE UNITED STATES: AN OUTLINE OF POLITICAL COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY MACMILLAN AND CO. Norwood Press : J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith. Boston, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE. THESE Essays are the outcome of discussions in which the writer has been engaged on the several questions, and are partly drawn from papers contributed by him to different periodicals. Of the subjects some are specially British, though not without interest for a citizen of the United States; others are common to both countries. Some service may be done by bringing an important question into focus, even when the reader does not agree with the opinions of the writer. The opinions of the present writer are those of a Liberal of the old school as yet unconverted to State Socialism, who looks for further improvement not to an increase of the authority of government, but to the same agencies, moral, intellectual, and economical, which have brought us thus far, and one of which, science, is now operating with immensely increased power. A writer of this school can have no panacea or nostrum to offer; and when a nostrum or panacea is offered, he will necessarily be found rather on the critical side. He will look for improvement, not for regeneration; expect improvement still to be, as it has been, gradual; and hope much from steady, calm, and harmonious effort, little from violence or revolution. In his estimation the clearest gain reaped by the world from all the struggles through which it has been going, amidst much that is equivocal or still on trial, will be liberty of opinion. |