HKB
regarded as involving an admission of a genuine antagonism between the apparent interests of individuals and of the whole community, which it is the business of society to guard against.
All this legislation is rightly interpreted as a restriction of the freedom of individual industry under modern methods of production, required in the public interest. Uncontrolled machine-production would in some cases force children of six or eight years to work ten hours a day in an unhealthy factory, would introduce suddenly a host of Chinese or other "cheap" workers to oust native labour accustomed to a higher standard of comfort, would permit an ingenious manufacturer to injure the consumer by noxious adulteration of his goods, would force wages to be paid by orders upon shops owned or controlled by employers, would oblige workers to herd together in dens of infection, and to breed physical and moral diseases which would injure the body politic. The need of a growing social control over modern machine-production, in cases where that production is left in the main to the direction of individual enterprise, is admitted on every side, though the development of that control has been uneven and determined by the pressure of concrete grievances rather than by the acceptance of any distinct theory of public responsibility.
Other limitations upon individual freedom of industry imply a clearer recognition of the falsehood of the laissez faire position. The undertaking by the State or the Municipality, or other units of social life, of various departments of industry, such as the railways, telegraphs, post-offices, is a definite assertion that, in the supply of the common services rendered by these industries, the competition of private interests cannot be relied upon to work for the public good.