6 JUNE 1908, Page 2

Mr. Bonar Law made a decided hit, though he probably

did not realise what a sense of shame it must have caused to those Liberals who are also genuine Free-traders, when be declared that the real point of the amendment was its financial side. Every country had found it—i.e., a tariff—a means of raising revenue even before they used it for protection. That ut

exactly the Spectator's point. Tariffs are begun in order to find the money for profligate expenditure, such as old-age pensions, and are then riveted on the backs of the unfortunate tax- payer in the name of Protection.