with a like right on the part of his neighbors."

Why is a false and injurious statement privileged, if it is made
honestly in giving information about a servant? It is because it has
been thought more important that information should be given freely,
than that a man should be protected from what under other circumstances
would be an actionable wrong. Why is a man at liberty to set up a
business which he knows will ruin his neighborhood? It is because
the public good is supposed to be best subserved by free competition.
Obviously such judgments of relative importance may vary in different
times and places. Why does a judge instruct a jury that an employer is
not liable to an employee for an injury received in the course of his
employment unless he is negligent, and why do the jury generally find
for the plaintiff if the case is allowed to go to them? It is because
the traditional policy of our law is to confine liability to cases where
a prudent man might have foreseen the injury, or at least the danger,
while the inclination of a very large part of the community is to make
certain classes of persons insure the safety of those with whom they
deal. Since the last words were written, I have seen the requirement
of such insurance put forth as part of the programme of one of the best
known labor organizations. There is a concealed, half conscious battle
on the question of legislative policy, and if any one thinks that it can
be settled deductively, or once for all, I only can say that I think he
is theoretically wrong, and that I am certain that his conclusion will
not be accepted in practice semper ubique et ab omnibus.

Indeed, I think that even now our theory upon this matter is open to
reconsideration, although I am not prepared to say how I should decide
if a reconsideration were proposed. Our law of torts comes from the
old days of isolated, ungeneralized wrongs, assaults, slanders, and the