On Monday the Prime Minister delivered in Edinburgh a speech
to the members of the Scottish Conservative Club. After a feeling reference to Sir William Harcourt, and a declaration that no bargaining with the Irish party can, or ever will, take place, as he and his party are not for sale, Mr. Balfour turned to the Fiscal question. His first point was that there was nothing to alter in the Sheffield programme. All the recommendations that he then made in regard to alterations in our Fiscal policy were sound recommendations. That policy was not a compromise or a half-way house, but a logical and. self-contained whole, defensible in it itself. Mr. Balfour went on to define a Protective policy as one that means to support or create home industries by raising home prices. Protection in the true sense of the word, and in the sense defined by him, had always been an admissible doctrine in the Conservative party ; but he did not share the views of those who advocated it. Though he was not one of those who thought with the Free-trader in the street that the argument of Free-trade was as simple as that two and two make four, he repudiated Protection in the sense defined by him as one not expedient in existing circumstances. At the same time, however, if his party adopted it he would not think of diminishing the zeal and earnestness of his support of that party, though he did not think, in such circum- stances, he could with advantage be its leader.
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