Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1890-02-13
ABOUT PATERNALlSM.

Why the Policy of Protection Is Out of
Place in This Country.
The question of q protective tariff, as
Mr.. Gladstone shows in his recent arti-
Gle, is not one of infinite and complex
details only, into which experts alone
can hopefully enter, and in which they
often merely array assertion against as
sertion, but it is one which involves
great principles of government. Its
chief principle is foreign to the Ameri-
can doctrine of liberty. because, as its
name implies, it is paternalism. Pro-
lection is paternalism applied to trade
or commercial intercourse, as the
various degrees of despotic administra-
ton in other countries are paternalism
in the sphere of politics. The public
authority which regulates individual
freedom in travel. in residence, in
public meeting and debate. in speaking,
in writing, and in voting, is akin to
that which restricts the same freedom
in buying and selling. 1t is indeed an
authority which, under the plea of the
public good, tends to absorb every func-
ii on, and instead of exercising only the
power which is expressly given to it,
assumes that the individual may exer-
else only such freedom as it may permit
Louis Napoleon, in the effort to estab-
lish his personal rule in France, called
himself the savior of society, which is
the ancient plea of despotism-
This general view was admirably and
forcibly stated at the late dinner of the
Tariff Reform League in Boston by MIR.
John NJ. Forbes, who until recently was
one of the strongest and most liberal
and efficient Republican leaders in New
England. But upon the question of
protection as in itself good and wise
policy he has parted with the party.
He cited the course of events in France
under the two empires, which ended in
fearful disaster for the French people.
Every omnibus wheel and post horse
wore the government 1Adge. The in
terfering hand of public authority
reached everywhere. Over-taxation, ex
travagance, corruption, jobbery, and all
forms of tyranny and injustice, and the
general dry-rot under which the Second
Empire crumbled, were due to the spirit
of paternalism, which MIR. Forbes de-
fines as over-government or an absorb
ing Capitalization. as opposed to local
government, or Lincoln's government
''of the people, by the people, for the
people," High tariff, posing as protec-
ton of the poor laborer, and holding on
to surplus which breeds extravaganza,
corruption and jobbery, necessarily
tends to reaction in which the laborer
will be the sufferer. Moreover, he ar
CUES, it is the precursor of socialism or
communism; if the interests of trade
may be properly protected by govern
ment at the expense of other interests
and Industries, those other interests
may in turn, and logically, be equally
protected by government, until Mr..
Bellamy's Look Backward will be shown
to be merely Look Forward.
This is the philosophy of protection.
It is a form of paternalism, and there
fore it is not agreeable to what we may
call Americanism, in which Mr.. Forbes
has great confidence. Whatever may
have seemed to American en1ighten-
ment and common sense in a certain de-
gree and under certain circumstances
permissible or desirable, yet the ten
dency to convert a medicine or stimu-
liant into daily food or drink must be
jealousy watched. He finds comfort in
Lincoln's shrewd saying: ''You may
fool some of the people all the time, and
all of the people some of the time. but
you can not fool all the people all the
time,' and from Burkes famous SEN
tence: ''The people never give up their
liberties but under some delusion." The
paternal aspect of protection is well
worthy universal attention, apart from
the contested details of the tariff
chedules.-Harper's Weekly.