(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
SIE,—Mr. Chamberlain proposes to say to the working man in
effect this The extra cost of food which the new policy will exact from you shall be returned to you in old-age pensions; and, not only so, but as the whole amount collected by the new import-duties shall be so expended, and as part of this will be paid by the upper classes, you will get more spent on you than you pay.' It perhaps is as Well to 'point out a fallacy in this argument. Only a small portion of the extra cost of food will go to the Government ; the greater part will go elsewhere, to enrich other members of the community,- corn-dealers, millers, bacon-factors, cheese merchants, farmers, and landowners. For it will only be on food-stuffs from foreign countries that the tax will be levied, and even on this portion the retailer to the working-man purchaser will exact in enhanced price more than the amount of the tax. On all that comes from our own Colonies and on all home-grown stuff the whole of the increase of price will go to the work- man's fellow-citizens. Perhaps he will have no objection. I do not pronounce judgment on this point. But if it is as I have indicated, he ought to know it, and not give in his adhesion to the new fiscal policy on a misunderstanding.—
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