h what speed may be, and deliver to
every Post-master a Book, that as they bring up the affairs of one
Parish in writing, they may carry down in print the Affairs of the
Whole Land."

ITS BENEFITS.

"The benefit lies here, that if any part of the Land be visited
with Plague, Famine, Invasion or Insurrection, or any casualties,
the other parts of the Land may have speedy knowledge, and send
relief. And if any accident fall out through unreasonable action,
or careless neglect, other parts of the Land may thereby be made
watchful to prevent like dangers. Or if any through industry or
through ripeness of understanding have found out any secret in
Nature, or new invention in any Art or Trade, or in the tillage of
the Earth, or such like, whereby the Commonwealth may more
flourish in peace and plenty, for which virtues those persons
received honor in the places where they dwelt; then, when other
parts of the Land hear of it, many thereby will be encouraged to
employ their Reason and Industry to do the like; that so in time
there will not be any Secret in Nature, which now lies hid (by
reason of the iron age of Kingly Oppressing Government) but by some
or other will be brought to light, to the beauty of our
Commonwealth."

With this suggestive passage this chapter may fittingly close. Like his
great successor in the Nineteenth Century, Winstanley evidently realised
that "Liberty means Justice, and Justice is the Natural Law--the law of
health and symmetry and strength, of fraternity and co-operation."

FOOTNOTES:

[197:1] Law Reform was at that time very popular, and undoubtedly much
needed. The month previous to the publication of the book we are now
considering, in January 1652, a Law Reform Commission consisting of
twenty-one members had been appointed. It evidently went to work in a
very thorough manner. For, according to a modern Lawyer, Mr. Inderwick
(see his book _The Interregnum_, referred to by Gardiner), it appears
that of eight draft Acts proposed on March 23rd, 1652, one became Law in
1833, one in 1846, and a third in 1885.

[197:2] "Things of this world," says Locke (_Of Civil Government_, part
ii. chap. xiii. sec. 157), "are in so constant a flux, that nothing
remains long in the same state.... But ... private interest often keeps
up customs and privileges when the reasons of them are ceased."

[200:1]