In a speech at Rugby on Wednesday Mr. Austen Chamber-
lain made the following very remarkable statement :—"It was no exaggeration to say that two-thirds of the original doctrine of the early Free-trade school had been by common consent abandoned. If that were so, what was there so sacred about the remaining one-third that it was high treason to the people to regard it as an open question whether they should reconsider their position with regard to it." We are totally at a loss to know what this means. As far as we are aware, no Free-traders have abandoned two-thirds of the principles of their predecessors. The early school of Free- traders contended that Retaliation in order to lower foreign tariffs was a dream, and they further insisted that to retain the system of Colonial Preference—a system in principle exactly similar to that proposed by Mr. Chamberlain existed in the " thirties "—would be most injurious. The rest of Mr. Chamberlain's speech was taken up with a very
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