On Thursday, November 1st, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald answered, in the
name of his party, the Prime Minister's suggestion that Labour might look favourably upon , his Protectionist proposals. Mr. MacDonald. laid down the classical Labour doctrine on fiscal questions—that, while Free Trade is not in itself a panacea and will never cure unemployment, Protection is no remedy and will indeed aggravate the disease. Unemployment was caused because we had no export trade. Protection was, admittedly, a method of raising prices. But as we were shut out of the European markets because of the high price of our goods, he failed to sec how we were to get into them by increasing the cost of production. In the past Protection had been fought on a negative issue. To-day the fight would be not "Protection versus Free Trade," but "Protection versus the Labour policy." Thus Labour has spoken. It refuses the Liberal as well as the Conservative remedy. Mr. Mac- Donald was careful to say nothing which could debar him from a possible use of Import Duties should he come into power. He simply attacked the Baldwin programme as utterly inadequate to accomplish its avowed object.
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