TOPICS OP THE DAY.
THE FISCAL DEBATE.
-WE do not wonder that the Tariff Reformers are once V V more keenly disappointed by Mr. Balfour's attitude towards their cause. It is true that Mr. Balfour nominally spoke on the side of Tariff Reform in the debate on Mr. Hills's Motion, and also that he voted for that Motion. His reasons for doing so, however, if candidly considered, must surely fill his Tariff Reform followers with alarm. In effect, he gives away the whole Protectionist case. If Mr. Balfour is now to be counted as a loyal Tariff Reformer, and consequently a fit person to lead the Tariff Reform Party, that party must have fundamentally changed its views, and Mr. Chamberlain's principles must have ceased to inspire it. In all Mr. Chamberlain's speeches, and in all the speeches of his principal lieutenants up to now, there has been the strongest Protectionist bias shown in the declarations that British trade is being destroyed by foreign competition, that the working man needs pro- tection for his labour from the unrestrained influx of alien products, and that unless something is at once done to save our chief industries, they will one by one be extinguished. Not only is no echo of these views to be found in Mr. Balfour's speech, but it abounds with inferences and general statements which amount to a condemnation of the Protectionist policy. For example, though expressing his opinion as to the " pressing necessity to this country of markets outside these shores," Mr. Balfour was careful to explain that those who think with him "are not therefore Protectionists." Again, he tells us that " we have deliberately, and I think rightly, said we do not mean to hamper our developments by attempting to preserve a great agricultural population by high Protective duties on foodstuffs." Mr. Balfour also went on to say that ho was prepared to face the inevitable consequences of the choice we made " when we openly proclaimed ourselves a country which has to live by its manufactures, which has to import vast quantities of foodstuffs and vast quantities of raw material, which must have a great export trade, and to which it is an absolutely vital necessity that that export trade should be carried on under the most favourable conditions." We agree with Mr. Balfour when he declares : " That is not Protection, that is Free-trade," for one of the most favourable con- ditions is that we shall maintain the principle of the free market.
• Even when Mr. Balfour went on to discuss the need for developing closer union with the Colonies he gave little or no encouragement to his Tariff Reform followers. After condemning an Imperial Council with executive powers as a proposition that must be " for this generation and for many generations, perhaps for all time, but at all events for the present, absolutely abandoned," he also declared that we must give up the idea of an Imperial Zollverein. The highest point to which Mr. Balfour could screw himself as regards Colonial Preference was a criticism of the Government for not adopting a more sympathetic attitude towards Colonial ideas of Imperial Preference. "All that this Resolution asks for," said Mr. Balfour, " is that the Government should not rule out of the business of the Conference some attempt at discussion of the possibility of giving on the present basis some preferential advan- tages to the Colonies by one means or the other." These lukewarm phrases, and some nebulous and conventional suggestions that it will be necessary to broaden the basis of taxation if we are to go on with our present system of expenditure, were, as we read Mr. Balfour's speech, the only encouragement which he was able to give to the great and revolutionary proposals in ✓ egard to our fiscal and Imperial systems which we used to hear expounded by Mr. Chamberlain. Mr. Chamberlain, it will be remembered, used to represent them as capable of building a new heaven and a new earth, and as being able at one and the same time to free the toilers of Great Britain from all risk of unemployment and to unite the Empire. In fact, the policy of higher wages for the artisan, permanent employment for the unemployed, protection and revival of dying industries, a severe blow in the face to the foreigner, and a closer union with the Colonies, blessings all to be produced by moderate taxes on food and a small tariff on manufactured articles,—all this has faded in the dry light of Mr. Balfour's dialectic to a criticism of the existing Government for not being more sympathetic and more diplomatic in their handling of the Colonial Conference.
If this had been all that was said to dash the enthusiasm of the Tariff Reformers, it would, from their point of view, have been bad enough. There was, however, one passage in Mr. Balfour's speech which, if considered in the light of recent events and recent utterances, will, we think, be regarded by them as even more significant of their failure to impress their leader with their principles and aspirations. It may be remembered that about two months ago Lord Milner made a speech which, in the Million of his friends and admirers, placed him among the foremost of the Tariff Reform leaders, if, indeed, it did not prove at once that Mr. Chamberlain's mantle had fallen on him. That speech was a frankly Protectionist speech, and in effect argued that social reform of a very Socialistic kind, including old-age pensions and other schemes involving vast expenditure on the part of the State, should be coupled with Tariff Reform, and Tariff, Reform of the true and not of the watered- down variety. The Morning Post in its leading article of Thursday commenting upon the debate—a leading article which significantly does not contain the name of Mr. Balfour or any reference to his speech—sum- marises Lord Milner's view as follows :—" When all is said there remains the plain situation, which no one has stated better than Lord Milner. Without Tariff Reform there can be no stable policy of social reform ; without Tariff Reform there can be no Imperial Union; without both social reform and Imperial Union this country must become a relatively poor nation, unable to maintain—still less to improve—the standard.of well-being for the masses of its people."
We can gather what Mr. Balfour thinks of such a programme for the Unionist Party by the passage in Wednesday's speech in which he looks forward to opposing a coalition between Protection and Socialism. It is true that he appeared to contemplate rather the conversion of the Radicals to Protection than that of the Tories to Socialism, but his words are none the less significant for • that. " I think the tilde may come when I shall be endeavouring to prevent honourable gentlemen opposite from being swept away by a Protectionist flood which shall derive all its volume, as it derives its volume in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and America, not from the wealthy few, but from the great mass of the employed." Does this passage imply that Mr. Balfour is at last beginning to realise what we have endeavoured to impress on him upon several occasions ? There is need, and imminent need, for some Unionist statesman who, instead of attempting, as do the Tariff Reformers, to outbid the Liberals for Socialist support, will boldly and plainly stand forward as opposed to Socialism, whether in its direct form of old-age pensions and the like, or in its indirect form of Protection intended to give more employment and to increase wages. Will Mr. Balfour be that man, and will he call upon the moderate and conservative elements in the nation, whatever maybe their party label at the i moment, to rally round him in defence of those essential political and social institutions, including the family, which may be relied on to maintain the strength and independence of the men and women who make up the Empire? The passage we have quoted certainly seems to show that Mr. Balfour has no intention to follow Lord Milner's lead in advocating a virtual alliance between Pro- tection and Socialism. But if he really intends to take this anti-Socialist attitude, something more is required of him than passive resistance. Will he have the courage to come forward boldly and plainly, and not merely confine himself to incidental adverse criticism ? Such criticism, however able, can be no substitute for a bold and inspiriting policy based upon the conviction and the assertion that Socialism and Protection combined, instead of helping the poorer classes of the community, would inflict upon them the greatest possible injury,—would not merely weaken, and in the end destroy, our economic stability, but what is far worse, would undermine the strength of the nation, shatter its moral, and reduce us to the level of a pauperised and servile people.
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