Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/248

234 land at the mouth of the Rhine and the Scheldt, no Motley would have had occasion to write the history of their immortal republic. It was because the Alps furnished protection from the barbarians that plundered the adjacent countries that the Swiss became famous in the history of freedom. But for the lagoons of the Adriatic barring the advance of foot and horse, the world would never have heard of the Venetians, who maintained their state for more than a thousand years. The populations in all the countries of Europe, especially those of northern Italy, where modern civilization made its earliest and most glorious conquests, that were able to raise a wall against the floods of disorder that raged about them, soon passed from the shadows of barbarism, and only returned to them again because of the ferocity of political dissensions and the devastation and degradation of war. In southern France, where Roman civilization suffered least from the inroads of the barbarians, the people became much more enlightened and civilized than in northern France, where it suffered most. The energies of the northern boroughs were devoted to a struggle with feudalism, and, as a consequence, municipal freedom and civilization made little headway. Those of the southern were devoted, to use the words of Guizot, to "internal organization, amelioration, and progress" The inhabitants thought only of establishing "independent republics."

As here implied, peace is the progenitor of political freedom. It destroyed the monopoly of power enjoyed first by the one and later by the few, and conferred upon the many a voice in the control of their lives and property. The pacific states of antiquity were free states—Athens, Corinth, Rhodes, and Carthage. The industrial populations that escaped the anarchy of the middle ages were also free. When war ceases to be the main business of life, there is a relaxation of the bonds of despotism. They are not required to resist aggression nor to promote it. By useless and vexatious regulations they interfere with production and exchange. Moreover, a people trained to the management of their private enterprises, learn to manage public enterprises and demand a share in the work. The genius shown by the Dutch in the art of self-government was acquired during the centuries that they were left to themselves and their industries. The charters granted to them by their rulers conceded nothing new; they confirmed only the prescriptive rights and privileges evolved from industrial needs. The free governments of Venice, Barcelona, and other industrial cities of Europe, particularly those of the famous Hanseatic League, had a similar origin. "The cities are the work of the traders" says M. Pirenne, an eminent Belgian scholar; "they exist only because of them. Whether of Roman or non-Roman origin, seat of a bishop, monastery, or castle, free or subject to the