EDITOR'S TABLE. 



841 



%iiiUx's Saljlc. 



SAFEGUARDS OF NATIONAL 

 PROSPEEITY. 



THEEE are two very sharply con- 

 trasted views of the conditions 

 on wlaich national prosperity de- 

 pends, and we do not know how 

 they can be better desci'ibed than by 

 naming them the scientific and the 

 unscientific view, respectively. The 

 scientific view of this and of every 

 subject takes its start from Nature 

 and the operation of natural law. 

 The unscientific view takes its start 

 from the idea of human interven- 

 tion. The one finds the basis of all 

 prosperity in the fruitful application 

 of labor ; the other thinks that noth- 

 ing can be done well without inces- 

 sant watchfulness to control and fre- 

 quently to counteract the operation 

 of natural forces and processes. Ac- 

 cording to the latter view, men and 

 nations have to be guided, protected, 

 and nursed into prosperity; accord- 

 ing to the foi'mer, man is an animal 

 who icants to be prosperous, and 

 who has wit enough to attain his 

 desires if he is only sufficiently let 

 alone. So far as this country is con- 

 cerned, no one can deny that what 

 we have called the scientific view is 

 sustained by facts, at least to this 

 extent that, undeniably, the years 

 when the most rapid advances were 

 made in wealth and general prosper- 

 ity were precisely those in which in- 

 dustry was least protected, and the 

 principles of paternalism in govern- 

 ment least developed. 



An important characteristic of the 

 scientific view is that it makes for 

 national unity and for good will 

 among men; while a most unfortu- 

 nate characteristic of the other is that 

 it tends to separate class from class 

 and man from man in the most in- 



vidious manner. There is no one 

 scheme by which the whole of a na- 

 tion can be "protected." Protection 

 is necessarily a piecemeal business, 

 and what is accorded to one class be- 

 comes a pretext for similar or equiva- 

 lent privileges to another class. In 

 this way each class is led to watch 

 with jealousy what is done for every 

 other, in order to see that it is not 

 left out in the distribution of state 

 favors. The land is thus filled with 

 countless law-made causes of rivalry 

 and contention, and the minds of men 

 grow small through the study of nar- 

 row and selfish interests, instead of 

 being enlarged by the thought of one 

 great onward movement in which, 

 under the regime of liberty, all would 

 participate. 



Every protectionist system is dom- 

 inated by the sentiments of fear and 

 enmity fear of and enmity toward 

 those against whom protection is 

 sought. That such sentiments are 

 at war with and tend to depress and 

 weaken the more generous instincts 

 of a community who can doubt ? 

 When party orators talk of the '' pau- 

 per labor " of the Old World, is it 

 with any accent of sympathy for the 

 hard lot of the alleged pauper labor- 

 ers ? Is it not always with a fierce 

 accent of contempt for the laborers 

 and hatred toward the countries to 

 which they belong ? We can truly 

 say that we have no recollection of 

 ever having seen or heard the term 

 employed except with a distinct im- 

 plication of contempt and hostility. 

 Why is our country even to-day, 

 when arbitration treaties are under 

 discussion, so prone to anger and bit- 

 terness toward foreign countries, but 

 particularly toward Great Britain, if 

 not that protective policies steadily 



