The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

AREVIEWER'S NOTEBOOKJOHN CHAMBERLAINHIDDENMORRIS C. SHUMIATCHER'S Welfare:Hidden Backlash (Toronto:McClelland and Stewart, Limited,$10.00), is one of the saddest booksI have ever read. The sadness hasa double focus. First, the booktells the story of what the whiteman, through his blindness, did tothe Indian in Canada. But evenmore ominous (for it could carryboth the white and the Indian intothe same bitter trough of degradation), there is the between-thelinesstory of what compulsoryState welfare philosophy threatensto do to everybody in Canada whois within reach of a paternalisticlegislature in Ottawa.The white man in Canada can'tsay that he hasn't had plenty ofwarning. Mr. Shumiatcher, a lawyerwho once served as assistantto the socialist premier of Saskatchewan,was once imbued withthe idealistic notion that the onlything needed to abolish any wrongto an individual was a generousappropriation of money. He livedto learn that the worst thing youcould do to a human being, whetherwhite, red - or, by extension,black - was .to make him a wardof government. A house cat, eventhough fed in a protected kitchenon choicest liver, still manages tomaintain an aura of self-respect.Not so the human animal whenfed by government, as Mr. Shumiatcherdiscovered in the days ofhis socialist novitiate and duringhis subsequent travels as a legalcounsel for. the Indians inJwesternCanada.The Queen's commissioners had378