Page:Mr. John Stuart Mill and the ballot.djvu/20

18 declamation, was so sacred or so carefully guarded by the law as that of personal liberty. They were quite aware of the pains taken, first by the common law—by the writ, as it was called, of habeas corpus—and supplemented by statute, to secure to every man his personal freedom—that he should not be put in prison without lawful cause, and that if he was he should be brought before a competent magistrate, within a given time, and be set at liberty or undergo punishment. But that liberty was not liberty of the body only: it was also liberty of the mind and will; and the liberty of a man's mind and will, to say how he should bestow himself and his means, his talents and his industry, was as much a subject of the law's protection as was that of his body. Generally speaking, the way in which people had endeavoured to control the operations of the minds of men was by putting restraints on their bodies, and therefore we had not so many instances in which the liberty of the mind was vindicated as was that of the body. Still, if any set of men agreed among themselves to coerce that liberty of mind and thought by compulsion and restraint, they would be guilty of a criminal offence; he laid it down as clear and undoubted law, that if two or more persons agreed that they would, by coercion or compulsion, co-operate together against that liberty they would be guilty of an indictable offence." Applying the principles he had laid down to the case before him, the learned judge went on to say he was of opinion that if picketing should be done in a way which excited no reasonable alarm, or did not coerce or annoy those who were the subjects of it, it would be no offence in law. It was perfectly lawful for the defendants to endeavour to persuade persons to act with them who had not