202 BRITISH INSTITUTIONS OF TO-DAY
works of charity. The other point is simply this: a
clash of loyalties is always distressing and may be
disastrous to individual or community, but without
the freedom which makes that clash at any moment
possible no State however strong can provide a home
for free citizens.
§3. THE NEED FOR TOLERATION
What we have been saying about churches and
trade unions may remind us that persecution in the
interests of a dominant class was formerly a regular
function of the State. Little more than a hundred
years ago trade unionists were persecuted in the
interests of employers, while Catholics and Protestant
Nonconformists were subjected to various mortifying
disabilities, involving exclusion from the ancient
universities and from any full participation in political
life, in the supposed interests of the Church of England.
Besides these special cases of intolerance, there was
once the more general principle of discouraging all
criticism of the Government, emancipation from which
provides the theme for a large part of English con-
stitutional history, especially on the legal side. Since
1679, when the Habeas Corpus writ was made an
effective safeguard against arbitrary imprisonment by
Government orders, successive battles have been
waged over such matters as the right to petition the
Crown, freedom from arbitrarily issued warrants foi
search and arrest, the publication of parliamentary
debates, and the all-important general liberty to
criticize all Government actions without let 01
hindrance.
Writing half a century ago, the late Professor Dicey