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rights of the industrious, which a growing sense of common uti-lity ascertains as imperiously demanding such defence. For thispurpose, or under this pretext, a common government, undervarious forms, has been universally adopted L y consent* or im-posed by violence, with various contrivances of political arrange-ment, for enforcing submission, or as checks upon tyranny, toavoid the one or the other extreme, of anarchy in the subject,or oppression in the sovereign. And, amidst'those imperfectionsthat must necessarily adhere to every human institution, it is ex-tremely probable, that, since the Revolution, there has been ob-tained, under the British Constitution, a proportion of the trueand legitimate ends of government, unequalled in the history ofancient or modern times.
| The difference in point of effect between a good and a bad go-vernment, on human industry, is incalculable. Under the for-mer, natural disadvantages are overcome ; countries, compara-tively sterile, are rendered fertile; and inhospitable swamps be-come hives of thriving industry: whilst under the latter, coun-tries by nature favoured with the richest soil, and the most ge-nial climate, have become seats of famine, poverty, ignorance,and every description of human wretchedness. *
Industry, however, must find for itself its own reward, in itsown fruits; and it requires no more to carry it to its full extentof energy. The best government can do no more for it than se-cure to it these fruits; and bad governments depress it, just inproportion as they diminish this security.
The proper province of good government is, to secure to it*subjects equal freedom of action, that every one may be at liber-ty to apply his time and his talents to whatever employment hefinds most to his advantage ; to secure the possession of proper-ty, and the fulfilment of contracts; to establish freedom of in-tercourse and interchange; and to defend the persons and pro-perties of the subject from internal violence, or hostile aggres-sion ; by providing an impartial administration of justice; clear-ing the streets and highways of robbers, and the seas of pi-rates ; and by keeping in preparation the means of national de-fence.
Besides this general protection, there are public works, of in-finite advantage to the national industry, which, as standing inneed of a more general combination than what could probablyoo obtained by means of private enterprise or voluntary-agree-ment, do necessarily require the aid or interposition of govern-ment.
Indeed, many works of provincial and even parochial utility,
* Great Britain, with Switzerland and Holland, (before their revolutions),“"glit be quoted as instances, on the one hand;-—modern Orecce,un the other.
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