TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD SALISBURY AND TARIFF REFORM. 'VHF letter from Lord Salisbury published in the I_ Times of March 15th in regard to the action and policy of the Tariff Reform League has caused a good deal of debate during the past week. Lord Salisbury declares himself not prepared to reject certain changes in our fiscal policy. In the first place, the country should not forbid itself the resource of retaliating against unfair commercial treatment. Next, he approves Mr. Balfour's declaration that just as the Colonies are prepared to give us a preference upon their existing tariffs, so we may reasonably inquire whether we cannot give them a prefer- ence upon our existing tariff. Further, if for revenue purposes we think it necessary to extend the category of dutiable articles, we should attempt to apply the principle of preference to the new duties as to the present duties. But if we have to broaden our basis of taxation, "the necessary food of the people should be the last thing made the subject of any such burden," for it is on precisely the same footing as raw material. "Both are essential, and without them the people cannot live." Lord Salisbury goes on to note a further difficulty in the way of the taxation of food. In the Fiscal controversy such taxation has not been recommended for revenue purposes, but in order to some extent to help the farmer, and still more in order to consolidate the Empire, "both admirable objects to be diligently sought, but certainly not at the expense of the very poor." The labourer will ask with unanswerable force : "Why should the farmer or the Empire be made specially a charge upon me ? " Again, a tax on food is open to the objection of the inequality of its incidence in the Colonies. It will help the Colonial producer of food, but not the Colonial producer of lumber. It will give a certain advantage to Canada, but it will do nothing for South Africa.
Lord Salisbury next turns to the problem of constructive policy, and endeavours to find some means of securing a pre- ference by taking off burdens rather than by imposing new ones. Why should not Colonial and Indian merchants be relieved of the burden of paying some half-a-million a year for using our ports ? Again, Colonial income paid in this country is burdened by a double Income.tax, an Income-tax in the Colony and an Income-tax here. Here is another opportunity for relief. When the Income-tax is lowered, the present rate of , duty might be retained for income arising in foreign countries, and reduced for income arising within the Empire. Lord Salisbury adds, in regard to his suggestions : "It will be observed that, unlike the taxation of food, they all involve, not the imposition, but the removal of a charge." He goes on to suggest that the farmer should look for relief, not towards the imposition of special burdens, but towards their removal,—that is, towards a lightening of the rates which at present press so heavily upon agriculture.
Though we are in general sympathy with the spirit of Lord Salisbury's letter, which is essentially moderate and conservative, we are afraid that his proposals are not very practicable, and that an attempt to carry them out might only prove a disappointment. We must never forget that nothing is more essential to the welfare of the Empire than that the United Kingdom, as its centre, or "power-house," as Mr. ICipling has called it, should be strong and sound. But the strength and soundness of these islands is bound up with the principle of the free market —the principle that, subject to duties for revenue, all men shall be free to sell their goods in this country without let or hindrance, and without any inquisitorial demands for certificates of origin. Again, we must always remember that up to 1845 we had a system of Colonial Preference which helped neither us nor the Colonies, and bred far more illwill than goodwill between us and the daughter-States. Preference, like all other attempts at interference with commerce, was proved beyond a doubt to make for bad, not for good, trade.
Before leaving the subject of Lord Salisbury's letter we may note the very stupid, if indeed not unfair, way in which he has been represented as ignoring the fact that we already tax food very largely, while denouncing the taxa- tion of food. Yet he was careful in his letter to use the phrase " the necessary food of the people," meaning such things as corn, meat, bacon, and dairy produce. Though we do not wish to make arbitrary distinctions between necessaries and luxuries, for practical purposes such articles of consumption a's sugar, beer, wines, and tobacco must be on a different footing than the articles without which life cannot be sustained. Though we fully
tymp se with Lord Salisbury's desire not to seem ostilaethtoi the attempt to find some form of preference for the Colonies, we are convinced that it would prove impossible to abandon the principle of taxation for revenue only, without doing damage to the nation and to the Empire. It is not because we love the foreigner more, or think that he should share every privilege with our own flesh and blood, that we do not want to put hint at a dis- advantage. It is because we are convinced, both by reason and by experience, that we cannot place him at that disadvantage without doing ourselves what in any case would be a serious injury, and might easily develop into a vital one,—one, too, which would prove a source of loss, not of benefit, to the daughter-nations of the Empire. The Empire has grown up on the foundation of the free market, and if we destroy that foundation the Empire will also be destroyed. But though we feel obliged to make a protest against what we believe to be dangerous admissions on the part of Lord Salisbury,. it must not be supposed that we desire to take up an absolutely non possumus attitude in regard to the specific points raised by him. By all means let them be discussed, for we are certain that such discussion can only have one result,—that is, to prove once again that things cannot be and not be at the same time, that you cannot interfere with trade without injuring it, and that you cannot limit exchanges without limiting wealth. Trade and commerce are only other names for exchange. When, then, we talk about the development of trade and commerce we mean the development and increase of exchanges. But such development and increase can never be obtained if the State, for non-commercial reasons, is constantly forbidding the banns in the case of this or that projected union between buyer and seller.
Lord Salisbury's letter is a good omen for that re-estab- lishment of the Unionist Party and cause on a Free-trade basis for which we have striven ever since the summer of 1903, and for which we shall continue to strive. An even stronger indication that what we desire will eventually come about is to be found in what is going on in the Hexham by-election. There, as has happened in several other by- elections, the Unionist candidate, though a convinced Tariff Reformer and vice-president of a Tariff Reform organisation, has found it necessary to tell the electors that for the present Tariff Reform is "off the slate," and that for this election, at any rate, they need not consider that votes given for him are votes given for Tariff Reform. In other words, he finds that he cannot win his battle without uniting the Unionist Party, and that he cannot unite it if he advocates Mr. Chamberlain's policy of a Colonial preference through the taxation of food. Matters, then, stand thus. A large section of the Unionists when they are not face to face with the electors make fierce and uncompromising Tariff Reform speebhes, like that recently made by Mr. Austen Chamberlain, and boldly advocate taxes on food and a general tariff. When, however, they come in contact with the realities of political life in a constituency, they find it absolutely essential to drop all such proposals. The Tariff Reform section of the Unionist Party are, in fact, developing two doctrines,—one, a Tariff Reform doctrine, for private consumption, and the second, a non-Tariff . Reform doctrine, for use at elections. We are not con- cerned for the moment with the morality of such pro- ceedings; but they certainly show what we have always believed,---viz., the inherent weakness and unreality of the Tariff Reform cause. It is an artificial product of Mr. Chamberlain's restlessness and want of economic understanding. It has no hold on the masses, and when the Unionist Party once more gets in touch with the people and obtains their confidence, it will be found that Tariff Reform has died out, Or at any rate withered into a mere pious opinion. The admission, "If you want to win an election you must not talk about Tariff Reform," is the must damaging thing ever said in regard to the policy of Protection. Yet this is a ' working principle which is being adopted throughout the Unionist Party. A winning cause has not to be concealed , in order to be tolerated.
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