[To 'the Editor of the Smeawrort.1
you allow me space to return to this subject once metre ? It is Of so great importunce.
You say : " We are entirely in favour of Free Trade within the Empire and only wish the. Dominions would agree to it," They wilt agree to it when they are—when the EnSpire as a unit is---Protected against" the outside world. They will not agree to it (and they are right) so long as the British Islea do not come within the fold but remain on a Free Trade basis. How 'can they ? ' It is for us to join our destiny with theirs.
You say, further : " We . cannot believe in Protection in principle- as 'againSt the rest of the world. - We want to
keep our carrying trade ; the obvious reply to which is (a) that if our industries continue to languish our carrying trade will soon have little trade to carry, but (b) if the Empire prospers we need have no concern for our shipping.
Please reflect on this : Do the railways of the United States lack traffic ? When the Empire is consolidated into one commercial unit, its sea routes will play the part of an internal railway system and they will have to be multiplied—trunk lines and - branch lines, main lines and feeders—till every port and part of the Empire has its full facilities and the number of ships that will be required will be multiplied almost beyond imagining.
You say that you cannot believe in Protection " in principle ; and those words raise hopes. It is the practice now that matters. It is preposterous to apply the principles and theories of other days to the conditions which confront us now. Recent years have seen the formation in almost every_ country of a vast scientifically organized machinery for international competition in trade. It is a new kind of world that we are moving in. Amongst the great com- mercial aggregations- now arrayed against us, the British Isles alone (we have to face the fact) cannot hope to hold their own but . . . the Empire can. That is the one dominating certainty on our horizon. The Empire can ; but only if it is organized, consolidated, unified within itself and protected, as all other countries protect themselves, against the outside world.
-I- have no misgivings in my belief that on equal terms the British will always beat the world. In spite of all our grumbling and self-depreciation, there is a better fibre in our people. But there is a limit to the odds that we can give away.
Among all the good causes. to which the Spectator has devoted itself there has been none so great, so vital to England, as this of the consolidation and commercial unification of the Empire. It will come-; but it is now, when the Imperial sense is visibly awakening in the people, that it needs such influences as that of the Spectator to.help it to come quickly.—
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