Mr. Haldane, speaking at East Linton, Haddingtonshire, on Tuesday, also
ranged himself with Sir Edward Grey on the ques- tion of preferential tariffs. Mr. Haldane pointed out that we were able to bear the immense burden of Empire because of our colossal national income, which in turn rested on a Free-trade basis. We had no great advantage in cheap minerals or raw material. We owed our pre-eminence as a manufacturing nation to the fact that we could do what others could not do, —import raw material from the markets where we could buy it cheapest and best, and import plenty of free wholesome food for the working classes, who supplied the labour by which the raw material was worked up into the manufactured goods to be sold to the rest of the world. Our Empire, he continued, rested on a Free-trade basis. We had occupied territory as trustees for civilisation ; we were the one nation that the rest of the world could afford to see expand. It was all very well to say that it was not proposed to tax raw material; but a food-duty would benefit only certain Colbnies, and to placate others we should have to put it on raw materials. He for one refused to embark on a policy which could not be defended on economic principles, which was a leap into the unknown, and might even mean ruin.
Previous page
