Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/788

 752 F R E F R E Die hciliijcn vicr Gckrontcn is supposed to relate to the martyrdom, in the time of Diocletian, of four stonecutters named Claudius, Nicostratus, Sinforiamus, and Simplicius, to whose memory the small church Quattro Santi Coroiiati at Rome was sacred. In the second part of Mr Fort s work will be found an accumulation of interesting facts relating to the early organization of masonic societies, their ceremonies, crypts and lodges, or places of meeting, and costumes; the payment of wages by warden, and the power of superintendence by master; the symbolic meaning of the hammer, the columns, the cord, the shoe ; and the various uses of marks. The word freemason has been derived from the Norman French Frerc Macron, brother mason, and also from the expression freestone mason. The origin of the word mason is itself uncertain. The low Latin macio may be the German Mctz ; but Diez regards it as a modification of marcio, from marcus, a hammer. Littre suggests that the Latin maccria, a stone wall, may contain a radical mac, from which macio has been formed. This is rendered more probable by the Italian tnannc or macigno, a stone lap mill, where the root idea of mace or hammer, used for pounding corn, is referred to. Tiler, the name of a masonic officer stationed at the door of the lodge, obviously comes from taillcur de 2 ) icrrc, the lapidicine of several mediaeval charters. (W. C. S. ) FREEPORT, a city of Illinois, United States, the capital of Stephenson county, is situated on the Pekatonica river, 110 miles W.N.W. of Chicago. It is a rapidly increasing town, and possesses woollen and carpet manu factories, a foundry, a tannery, a beet-root sugar factory, and various kinds of agricultural instrument factories. .The principal buildings are the court-house and the Presbyterian college, which was instituted in 1872. The population in 1850 was 1436, and in 1870, 7889. FREETOWN, a town of West Africa, capital of the British colony of Sierra Leone, stands on the south side of the estuary of the Sierra Leone river, about 5 miles from the cape of that name in 8 29 N. lat. and 13 10 W. lang. It is situated on a plain which slopes up gradually from the river, and is closed in behind by a succession of wooded mountains. The town is divided into several quar ters, the best of which is inhabited by Europeans, half- castes, and immigrants, who are either tradesmen or arti ficers, and the remainder solely by the black population, who congregate together in separate tribes. From the fact that both the houses in the best quarter and also the negro huts are surrounded by a court-yard or garden, the town covers an unusually large amount of space for the number of its inhabitants. The decomposed vegetable matter which is carried down the river, and driven back to the town by the tide, renders it very unhealthy, and unsuited for European residents, of whom there are only a small number. Freetown is the chief seat of the Sierra Leone trade, and a considerable sum of money has lately been expended on the construction of a new wharf. The prin cipal buildings are the governor s residence and government offices, the barracks, the cathedral, the missionary institu tions, and the grammar school. About two miles above Freetown, at Fourah Bay, the English Church Missionary Society has its principal West-African College, built in 1840, the ground having been purchased in 1827, and the work commenced in a temporary building. In 1876 the college was reorganized and affiliated to Durham university. The population is about 18,000. FREE TRADE. This expression has been appropriated, in a somewhat technical manner, to denote an unimpeded in tercourse between such manufacturing and commercial com munities as, having reciprocal interests, are under separate governments, and thereupon have separate financial systems. Thus the term is not applied to the facilities which town and country, labourer and capitalist, have obtained for reciprocal exchange, though these facilities have been acquired only in comparatively recent times. It is not used to describe the commercial intercourse of the three kingdoms, though restraints on the trade between Scotland and Ireland on the one side and England on the other were remitted, long after a political union between the three kingdoms had been effected, very grudgingly and very cautiously. Again, if we speak of free trade in land or free trade in banking, we use the term in a different sense from that in which it has been employed since the time of Adam Smith. But the phrase is technically used to designate such a commercial inter course between any particular country, its colonies, and foreign countries, as gives the maximum of facilities for reciprocal exchange, and in the least degree attempts to make a fiscal system the means for stimulating and assist ing domestic industry by protective enactments. Free trade in the sense given to it above is advocated on two principal grounds, the one economical, the other poli tical ; and all arguments alleged in favour of it can be brought under one or other of these topics. It is re sisted similarly for economical and political reasons, not, indeed, in contradiction to those which are adduced in its favour, for these are absolutely irrefragable, but on the grounds that the industries of a country ought not to be defined by merely economical reasons, and that there are political interests which will not indeed annul, but must materially modify the universal and undeviating application of the free-trade principle. It will be the object of the present article to give a brief account of the controversy between the advocates of commercial freedom and those of commercial restraint, and to show how events, due to opin ions which have long become obsolete, have strengthened the position of those who urge that the restraint of trade is and should be part of the function of Government. It is per haps necessary, however, to meet an objection at once which might be taken, if it were not anticipated. Every civilized Government rightly and properly undertakes the supervision of contracts, prohibiting some altogether, regulating others with less or greater strictness, and assuming the right to give an equitable interpretation to all; the application of the principles of equity to contracts being the most important improvement which modern civilization has induced on jurisprudence. Thus the law of civilized nations forbids any contract which would reduce one of the contracting parties to permanent slavery, though it compels the fulfil ment of bargains which involve the temporary servitude of one of the parties. Again, it nullifies immoral bargains, though it does not profess to follow the consequences which a bargain that is prima facie innocent may have. Again, it subjects some callings to a police, either by exacting, in the case of certain professions, evidence of the individual s capacity, or by guarding continuously against any abuse which may arise from the exercise of a calling specially open to abuse, as in the case of houses for public entertainment, and the issue of paper money by banks. Furthermore, it subjects even simple contracts to revision, as, for example, cases in which exorbitant charges are made for loans. In these instances, and in others like them, a Government is only carrying out its primary duty in protecting its people from force or fraud, by controlling the free action of those who may inflict a serious injury on others. To define the extent indeed, to which such interference is necessary or desirable, is one of the hardest questions in what may be called the casuistry of politics. A country may be so over- governed by a watchful administration as to lose, to a greater or less extent, the spirit of enterprise or initiation, and thereby to be weakened in the legitimate rivalry of nations. But, on the other hand, it may be still more seriously weakened by the destruction of credit or confi dence, a result which is very likely to ensue when fraud is successful and unpunished. Similarly a Government may control or prohibit inter course between nations. If individuals have rights at all, one of the most obvious and important of these rights is that of choosing a market for their labour. But a Govern ment would be admittedly justified in prohibiting the err.i-