Mr. Chamberlain also tried to place Mr. Ritchie in a
difficulty by declaring that though he would consent to keeping the existing shilling duty on all corn, he would not consent to turning ikinto a preferential duty from which Empire-grown wheat was exempted. Mr. Chamberlain seems to think that this proves that Mr. Ritchie has no love for the Empire. Of course it proves no such thing, but merely shows that he was an intelligent and consistent Free-trader, and looked oncluties as means for raising revenue, and not as instruments for taxing people into prosperity. Mr. Chamberlain's speech also contained a not very successful attempt to explain away his claim that the Colonies, though they might keep their existing Protective system, ought not to enlarge it to cover new industries. Mr. Chamberlain now says that he did not mean this by what he said at Glasgow. In that case, we call only say that his choice of language was most unfortunate. '
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