>>>

The Tariff Reformer rejects this single çast-iron principle. He
refuses to bow down before it, regardless of changing circumstances,
regardless of the policy of other countries and of that of the other
Dominions of the Crown. He wants a free hand in dealing with imports,
the power to adapt the fiscal policy of this country to the varying
conditions of trade and to the situation created at any given time by
the fiscal action of others. He has no superstitious objection to
using duties either to increase employment at home or to secure
markets abroad. But on the other hand he does not go blindly for
duties upon foreign imports as so-called Free Traders go blindly
against them, except in the case of articles not produced in this
country, some of which the Free Traders are obliged to tax
preposterously. Tariff Reform is not one-ideaed, rigid, inelastic, as
our existing system is. Many people are afraid of it, because they
think Tariff Reformers want to put duties on foreign goods for the fun
of the thing, merely for the sake of making them dearer. Certainly
Tariff Reformers do not think that cheapness is everything. Certainly
they hold that the blind worship of immediate cheapness may cost the
nation dear in the long run. But, unless cheapness is due to some
mischievous cause, they are just as anxious that we should buy cheaply
as the most ardent Cobdenite, and especially that we should buy
cheaply what we cannot produce ourselves. Talking of cheapness,
however, I must make a confession which I hope will not be
misunderstood by ladies present who are fond of shopping--I wish we
could get out of the way of discussing national economics so much from
the shopping point of view. Surely what matters, from the point of
view of the general well-being, is the productive capacity of the
people, and the actual amount of their production of articles of
necessity, use, or beauty. Everything we consume might be cheaper, and
yet if the total amount of things which were ours to consume was less
we should be not richer but poorer. It is, I think, one of the first
duties of Tariff Reformers to keep people's eyes fixed upon this vital
point--the amount of our national production. It is that which
constitutes the real income of the nation, on which wages and profits
alike depend.

And that brings me to another point. Production in this country is
dependent on importation, more dependent than in most countries. We
are not self-supplying. We must import from outside these islands vast
quantities of raw materials and of the necessaries of life. That, at
least, is common ground between the Free Trader and the Tariff
Reformer. But the lessons they draw from the fact are somewhat
different. The Free Trader is only anxious that we should buy all
these necessary imports as cheaply as possible. The Tariff Reformer is
also anxious that we should buy them cheaply, but he is even more
anxious to know how we are going to pay for all this vast quantity of
things which we are bound to import. And that leads him to two
conclusions.

The first is that, seeing how much we are obliged to buy
from abroad in any case, he looks rather askance at our increasing our
indebtedness by buying things which we could quite easily produce at
home, especially with so many unemployed and half-employed people. The
other, and this is even a more pressing solicitude to him, is that it
is of vital importance to us to look after our external markets, to
make sure that we shall always have customers, and good customers, to
buy our goods, and so to enable us to pay for our indispensable
imports. The Free Trader does not share this solicitude. He has got a
comfortable theory that if you only look after your imports your
exports will look after themselves. Will they? The Tariff Reformer
does not agree with that at all. Imports no doubt are paid for by
exports, but it does not in the least follow that by increasing your
dependence on others you will necessarily increase their dependence on
you. It would be much truer to say: "Look after the exports and the
imports will look after themselves." The more you sell the more you
will be able to buy, but it does not in the least follow that the more
you buy the more you will be able to sell. What business man would go
on the principle of buying as much as possible and say: "Oh, that is
all right. I am sure to be able to sell enough to pay for it." The
first thought of a wise business man is for his markets, and you as a
great trading nation are bound to think of your markets, not only your
markets of to-day but of to-morrow and the day after to-morrow.

The Free Trade theory was the birth of a time when our imports were
practically all supplemental to our exports, all indispensable to us,
and when, on the other hand, the whole of the world was in need of our
goods, far beyond our power of supplying it. Since then the situation
has wholly altered. At this actual moment, it is true, there is
temporarily a state of things which in one respect reproduces the
situation of fifty years ago. There is for the moment an almost
unlimited demand for some of our goods abroad. But that is not the
normal situation.

The normal situation is that there is an increasing
invasion of our markets by goods from abroad which we used to produce
ourselves, and an increasing tendency to exclude our goods from
foreign markets. The Tariff Reform movement is the inevitable result
of these altered circumstances. There is nothing artificial about it.
It is not, as some people think, the work of a single man, however
much it may owe to his genius and his courage, however much it may
suffer, with other good causes, through his enforced retirement from
the field. It is not an eccentric idea of Mr. Chamberlain's. Sooner or
later it was bound to come in any case. It is the common sense and
experience of the people waking up to the altered state of affairs,
beginning to shake itself free from a theory which no longer fits the
facts. It is a movement of emancipation, a twofold struggle for
freedom--in the sphere of economic theory, for freedom of thought, in
the sphere of fiscal policy, for freedom of action.

>>>

Preference is vital to the future growth of British trade, but it is
not only trade which is affected by it. The idea which lies at the
root of it is that the scattered communities, which all own
allegiance to the British Crown, should regard and treat one another
not as strangers but as kinsmen, that, while each thinks first of its
own interests, it should think next of the interests of the family,
and of the rest of the world only after the family. That idea is the
very corner-stone of Imperial unity. To my mind any weakening of that
idea, any practical departure from it, would be an incalculable loss
to all of us. I should regard a readjustment of our own Customs duties
with the object of maintaining that idea, even if such readjustment
were of some immediate expense to ourselves, as I hope to show you
that it would not be, as a most trifling and inconsiderable price to
pay for a prize of infinite value. I am the last man to contend that
preferential trade alone is a sufficient bond of Empire. But I do
contend that the maintenance or creation of other bonds becomes very
difficult, if in the vitally important sphere of commerce we are to
make no distinction between our fellow-citizens across the seas and
foreigners.

Closer trade relations involve closer relations in all
other respects. An advantage, even a slight advantage, to Colonial
imports in the great British market would tënd to the development of
the Colonies as compared with the foreign nations who compete with
them. But the development of the British communities across the seas
is of more value to us than an equivalent development of foreign
countries. It is of more value to our trade, for, if there is one
thing absolutely indisputable, it is that these communities buy ever
so much more of us për head than foreign nations do. But it is not
only a question of trade; it is a question of the future of our
people. By encouraging the development of the British Dominions beyond
the seas we direct emigration to them in preference to foreign lands.
We keep our people under the flag instead of scattering them all over
the world. We multiply not merely our best customers but our fellow
citizens, our only sure and constant friends.

And now is there nothing we can do to help forward this great object?
Is it really the case, as the Free Traders contend, that in order to
meet the advances of the other British States and to give, as the
saying is, Preference for Preference, we should be obliged to make
excessive sacrifices, and to place intolerable burdens on the people
of this country? I believe that this is an absolute delusion. I
believe that, if only we could shake off the fetters of a narrow and
pedantic theory, and freely reshape our own system of import duties on
principles of obvious common sense, we should be able at one and the
same time to promote trade within the Empire, to strengthen our hands
in commercial negotiations with foreign countries, and to render tardy
justice to our home industries.

>>>

I say, then, that the Tariff Reformer starts with the idea of a
moderate all-round tariff. But he is not going to ride his principle
to death. He is essentially practical. There are some existing duties,
like those on alcoholic liquors, the high rate of which is justified
for other than fiscal reasons. He sees no reason to lower these
duties. On the other hand, there are some articles, such as raw
cotton, which compete with no British produce, and even a slight
enhancement of the price of which might materially injure our export
trade. The Tariff Reformer would place these on a free list, for he
feels that, however strong may be the argument for moderate all-round
duties as a guiding rule, it is necessary to admit exceptions even to
the best of rules, and it is part of his creed that we are bound to
study the actual effect of particular duties both upon ourselves and
upon others.

No doubt that means hard work, an intimate acquaintance
with the details of our industry and trade, an eye upon the
proceedings of foreign countries. A modern tariff, if it is to be
really suitable to the requirements of the nation adopting it, must be
the work of experts. But is that any argument against it? Are we less
competent to make a thorough study of these questions than other
people, as for instance the Germans, or are we too lazy? Free Traders
make fun of a scientific tariff, but why should science be excluded
from the domain of fiscal policy, especially when the necessity of it
is so vigorously and so justly impressed upon us in every other field?
It is not only the War Office which has got to get rid of antiquated
prejudices and to open its eyes to what is going on in the world. Our
financial departments might reasonably be asked to do the same, and
they are quite equally capable, and I have no doubt equally willing,
to respond to such an appeal, instead of leaving the most thorough,
the most comprehensive, and the most valuable inquiry into the effects
of import duties, which has ever been made in this country, to a
private agency like the Tariff Commission.

I do not think it is necessary for me to point out how a widespread
tariff, besides those other advantages which I have indicated, would
strengthen our hands in commercial policy. In the first place, it
would at once enable us to meet the advances of the other States of
the Empire, and to make the British Empire in its commercial aspect a
permanent reality. To do this it would not be necessary, nor do I
think it would be right, to exempt goods from the British Dominions
entirely from the duties to which similar goods coming from foreign
lands are subject.

Our purpose would be equally well served by doing
what the Colonies do, and having two scales of duty, a lower one for
the products of all British States and Dependencies, a higher one for
those of the outside world. The amount of this preference would be a
matter of bargain to be settled by some future Imperial Conference,
not foredoomed to failure, and preceded by careful preliminary
investigation and negotiations. It might be twenty-five, or
thirty-three, or even fifty për cent. And whatever it was, I think we
should reserve the right also to give a preference, but never of the
same amount, to any foreign country which was willing to give us some
substantial equivalent. It need not be a general preference; it might
be the removal or reduction of some particular duties. I may say I do
not myself like the idea of engaging in tariff wars. I do not believe
in prohibitive or penal tariffs. But I do believe in having something
to give to those who treat us well, something to withhold from those
who treat us badly. At present, as you are well aware, Great Britain
is the one great nation which is treated with absolute disregard by
foreign countries in framing their tariffs. They know that however
badly they treat us they have nothing to lose by it, and so we go to
the wall on every occasion.

And now, though there is a great deal more to be said, I feel I must
not trespass much further on your patience. But there is one objection
to Tariff Reform which is constantly made, and which is at once so
untrue and so damaging, that before sitting down I should like to say
a few words about it. We are told that this is an attempt to transfer
the burden of a part of our taxation from the shoulders of the rich to
those of the poor. If that were true, it would be fatal to Tariff
Reform, and I for one would have nothing to do with it. But it is not
true. There is no proposal to reduce and I believe there is no
possibility of reducing, the burden which at present falls on the
shoulders of the upper and middle classes in the shape of direct
taxation. On the other hand, I do not believe there is much room for
increasing it--though I think it can be increased in one or two
directions--without consequences which the poorer classes would be the
first to feel.

A CONSTRUCTIVE POLICY


I am very sensible of the honour of being called on to reply for the
Unionist cause, but I approach the task with some diffidence, not to
say trepidation. I feel very conscious that I am not a very good
specimen of a party man. It is not that I do not hold strong opinions
on many public questions--in fact, that is the very trouble. My
opinions are too strong to fit well into any recognised programme. I
suffer from an inveterate habit, which is partly congenital, but which
has been developed by years spent in the service of the Crown, of
looking at public questions from other than party points of view. And
I am too old to unlearn it.

For a man so constituted there is evidently only a limited _role_ in
political life. But he may have his uses all the same, if you take
him for what he is, and not for what he is not, and does not pretend
to be. If he does not speak with the weight and authority of a party
leader, he is at least free from the embarrassments by which a party
leader is beset, and unhampered by the caution which a party leader is
bound to exercise. He commits nobody but himself, and therefore he can
afford to speak with a bluntness which is denied to those whose
utterances commit many thousands of other people. And I am not sure
whether the present moment is not one at which the unconventional
treatment of public questions may not be specially useful, so, whether
it be as an independent Unionist or as a friendly outsider--in
whichever light you like to regard me--I venture to contribute my mite
to the discussion.

Having now made my position clear, I will at once plunge _in medias
res_ with a few artless observations. You hear all this grumbling
which is going on just now against the Unionist leader. Well,
gentlemen, a party which is in low water always does grumble at its
leader. I have known this sort of thing happen over and over again in
my own lifetime. And the consequence is, it is all like water on a
duck's back to me; it makes no impression on me whatsoever. I remember
as long back as the late sixties and early seventies the Conservative
party were ceaselessly grumbling at Lord Beaconsfield, then Mr.
Disraeli, right up to his greatest victory and the commencement of his
longest tenure of power--almost up to the moment when he became the
permanent idol of the Conservative party. I remember how the Liberals
grumbled at Mr. Gladstone from 1873 and 1874 almost up to the opening
of the Midlothian campaign. Again, I remember how the Conservatives
grumbled at Lord Salisbury from the first moment of his accession to
the leadership right up to 1885. I can recall as well as if it were
yesterday a young Tory friend of mine--he has become a distinguished
man since, and I am not going to give him away--telling me, who was at
that time a Liberal, in the year of grace 1883 or 1884, that it was
absolutely hopeless for the Tory party ever to expect to come back
into power with such a leader as Lord Salisbury. He called him a
"Professor." He said, "No doubt he is a very able man and an excellent
speaker, but he is a man of science. He has no popular gifts whatever.
There is not a ghost of a chance of a Conservative victory so long as
he is in command." Yet that was not more than two years before Lord
Salisbury commenced a series of Premierships which kept him, for some
thirteen and a half years out of seventeen, at the helm of the State.

>>>

So far so good. Unionists cannot complain of what the Government is
doing for them. And on the negative side of policy--in their duty as
a mere Opposition--their course is clear. It is a fundamental article
of their faith to maintain the authority of the Imperial Parliament in
Ireland. But that authority can be set aside by the toleration of
lawlessness just as much, and in a worse way, than by the repeal of
the Union. And such toleration is the rule to-day. There may be no
violent crime, but there is open and widespread defiance of the law
and interference with the elementary rights of law-abiding people. It
is a demoralising state of affairs, and one to which no good citizen
in any part of the United Kingdom, however little he may be personally
affected by it, can afford to be indifferent. Once let it be granted
that any popular movement, which is not strong enough to obtain an
alteration of the law by regular means, can simply set the law aside
in practice, and you are at the beginning of general anarchy.

Unionists have to fight for a restoration of the respect for law in
Ireland in the interest of the whole kingdom. And they may have to
fight also, it appears, against the abrogation of our existing
constitution in favour of a system of quinquennial dictatorships. For
that and nothing else is involved in the proposal to reduce the House
of Lords to impotence and put nothing in its place. I am not concerned
to represent the present constitution of the House of Lords as
perfect. I have always been of opinion that a more representative and
therefore a stronger second chamber was desirable. But that we can
afford to do without any check on the House of Commons, especially
since the removal of all checks upon the power of those who from time
to time control the House of Commons to rush through any measures they
please without the possibility of an appeal to the people--that is a
proposition which no man with any knowledge of history or any respect
for constitutional government can possibly defend. To resist such a
proposal as that is not fighting for a party; it is not fighting for a
class. It is fighting for the stability of society, for the
fundamental rights of the whole nation.

I say, then, that on the negative side, in the things it is called
upon to resist, the Unionist party is strong and fortunate. But are we
to be content with that? Should we not all like to feel that we
appealed for the confidence of the people on the merits of our own
policy, and not merely on the demerits of our opponents? That, I take
it, is the feeling at the bottom of what men are saying on all hands
just now--that the Unionist party ought to have a constructive policy.

Now, if by a constructive policy is meant a string of promises, a sort
of Newcastle programme, then I can well imagine any wise statesmen,
especially if they happened to be in Opposition, thinking twice before
they committed themselves to it. But if by a constructive policy is
meant a definite set of principles, a clear attitude to the questions
which most agitate the public mind, a sympathetic grasp of popular
needs, and a readiness to indicate the extent to which, and the lines
on which, you think it possible and desirable to satisfy them--then I
agree that the Unionist party ought to have such a policy. And I
venture to say that, if it has such a policy, the fact is not yet
sufficiently apparent to the popular mind, or, perhaps, I should say,
speaking as one of the populace, to my mind.

>>>

It is not these objects which we deprecate. On the contrary, they have
our ardent sympathy. What we do deprecate is the spirit in which they
are so often preached and pursued. No progress is going to be
made--quite the contrary--by stirring up class hatred or trying to rob
Peter in order to pay Paul. It is not true that you cannot benefit one
class without taking from another class--still less true that by
taking from one you necessarily benefit another. The national income,
the sum total of all our productive activities, is capable of being
enormously increased or diminished by wise or foolish policy. For it
does not only depend on the amount of capital and labour. A number of
far subtler factors enter into the account--science, organisation,
energy, credit, confidence, the spirit in which men set about their
business.

The one thing which would be certain to diminish that
income, and to recoil on all of us, would be that war of classes which
many people seem anxious to stir up. Nothing could be more fatal to
prosperity, and to the fairest hopes of social progress, than if the
great body of the upper and middle classes of the community had cause
to regard that progress as indissolubly associated with an attack upon
themselves. And that is why, if reforms such as I have indicated are
costly--as they will be costly--you must find some better way of
providing for them than by merely giving another turn to the
income-tax screw, or just adding so much për cent. to the estate duty.

From my point of view, social reform is a national affair. All classes
benefit by it, not only those directly affected. And therefore all
should contribute according to their means. I do not in any way object
to the rich being made to contribute, even for purposes in which they
are not directly interested. What I do object to is that the great
body of the people should not contribute to them. It is thoroughly
vicious in principle to divide the nation, as many of the Radical and
Labour men want to divide it, into two sections--a majority which only
calls the tune, and a minority which only pays the piper.

I own I am aghast at the mean opinion which many politicians seem to
have of the mass of their working fellow countrymen, when they
approach them with this crude sort of bribery, offering them
everything for nothing, always talking to them of their claims upon
the State, and never of their duties towards it. This is a democratic
country. It is their State and their Empire--theirs to possess, theirs
to control, but theirs also to support and to defend. And I for one
have such faith in the common sense and fair-mindedness of the British
people that I believe you have only to convince them that you have a
really sound national policy, and they will rally to it, without
having to be bought by promises of a penny off this and twopence off
the other--a sort of appeal, I regret to say, which is not only
confined to Radical orators, but in which Unionists also are
sometimes too apt to indulge.

UNIONISTS AND THE EMPIRE


I am greatly reassured by the very kind reception which you have just
given me. To tell the truth, I had been feeling a little alarmed at
the fate which might await me in Edinburgh. From a faithful perusal of
the Radical Press I had been led to believe that Scotland was seething
with righteous indignation against that branch of the Legislature of
which I am, it is true, only a humble and very recent member, but yet
a member, and therefore involved in the general condemnation of the
ruthless hereditary tyrants and oppressors of the people, the
privileged landowning class, which is alleged to be so out of sympathy
with the mass of their fellow-countrymen, although, oddly enough, it
supplies many of the most popular candidates, not only of one party,
at any General Election. Personally, I feel it rather hard to be
painted in such black colours. There is no taint of hereditary
privilege about me. I am not--I wish I were--the owner of broad acres,
and I am in no way conscious of belonging to a specially favoured
class.

There are a great many of my fellow members in the House of
Lords who are in the same position, and who sit there, not by virtue
of any privilege, but by virtue of their services, or, let me say in
my own case, supposed services, to the State. And while we sit
there--and here I venture, with all humility, to speak for all the
members of that body, whether hereditary or created--we feel that we
ought to deal with the questions submitted to us to the best of our
judgment and conscience, without fear of the consequences to ourselves
and without allowing ourselves to be brow-beaten for not being
different from what we are. We believe that we perform a useful and
necessary function. We believe that a Second Chamber is essential to
the good government of this country. We do not contend--certainly I am
myself very far from contending--that the existing Second Chamber is
the best imaginable. Let there be a well-considered reform of the
House of Lords, or even, if need be, an entirely different Second
Chamber.

But until you have got this better instrument, do not throw
away the instrument which you have--the only defence, not of the
privileges of a class, but of the rights of the whole nation, against
hasty, ill-considered measures and against the subordination of
permanent national interests to the temporary exigencies of a party.

It is said that there is a permanent Conservative majority in the
House of Lords. But then every Second Chamber is, and ought to be,
conservative in temper. It exists to exercise a restraining influence,
to ensure that great changes shall not be made in fundamental
institutions except by the deliberate will of the nation, and not as
the outcome of a mere passing mood. And if the accusation is, that the
House of Lords is too Conservative in a party sense, which is a
different thing, I admit, from being Conservative in the highest and
best sense, that points not to doing away with the Second Chamber, but
to making such a change in its composition as, while leaving it still
powerful, still, above all, independent, will render it more
representative of the permanent mind of the nation.