ring the quality of goods;
but personal inspection by each buyer frequently is difficult and
time-consuming, requiring special and unusual knowledge of the
products and special costly testing apparatus. The states and the
nation undertake, in some cases, therefore, to set minimum standards
of quality, and to enforce them by governmental inspection. Government
coinage had its origin in this need.

This policy is applied, however, mainly to commodities affecting
health; its application to art products, except to protect the
morality of the community, would be difficult or unwise. Recent
legislation in many lands and in all of the American states has
developed greatly the policy of insuring the purity or the safety of
many articles consumed in the home; notable is the Federal Pure Food
and Drug Act of 1906. The federal law levying a tax on oleomargarine,
however, was designed as protective legislation in the interest of the
farmer. Public regulation and inspection sometimes raises the price,
but the cost is small compared with the convenience and the benefits
resulting to the citizen.

Sec. 6. #Charity, and control of vice#. The public relief of the
defective classes, insane, feeble-minded, and paupers, is a part
of the social protective policy. The public interest undoubtedly is
served by having these suffering classes systematically relieved, but
the extent and nature of the provision are questions ever in debate.
Still more debated is temperance legislation, both as to licensing and
as to prohibiting the liquor traffic. Nowhere is the manufacture and
sale of intoxicating liquor treated quite like the traffic in most
other goods, because it is recognized that the public interest is
affected in a different way. While it is beyond question that society
should protect itself and its innocent members against the drunkard,
it is more doubtful whether it owes to the man, for his sake,
protection against his own blunders. Not even the gods can save the
stupid. Temperance legislation is strongest in its social aspect. The
opponent of it usually champions the individualist view; its partizans
uphold, in varying degrees, the social view.

Similar questions arise regarding lotteries, gambling, betting, and
horse-racing. When a man backs a worthless horse against the field,
money probably is transferred from the stupider to the shrewder party.
The philosopher may say that the sooner a prodigal and his money
are parted the better