But in the meantime foreign tariffs had to be fought
and preferences must be given to the Dominions. He summarized his whole policy as follows :— "To put a tax on manufactured goods with special regard for those imports that cause the greatest amount of unemployment among our people.
To give a substantial preference to our Dominions.
To put no tax on wheat or meat.
To have investigated most carefully the best way we can help agriculture and maintain the tillage of the nation. To examine and co-ordinate and improve existing schemes of insurance against those evils that affect the life and health of our people, such as old age, ill-health and unemployment.
To develop our own estates in our Empire."
All this is a noticeable revulsion from the Tariff Reform of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain. As the products which the Dominions send us are almost entirely foodstuffs, Mr. Chamberlain recognized that preferences worthy of the name could not be given to the Dominions unless taxes were imposed upon foreign food. Mr. Baldwin begins, it will be seen, by repudiating the foundation of Mr. Chamberlain's scheme. It is well that he has done so, for nothing seems more certain than that the urban population would again reject food taxes as whole- heartedly as they did in 1005.
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