TARIFF REFORM AND THE REFERENDUM. rro TIER EDITOR op THE
"Grim-Luna.")
SIR,—The following extract from Mr. Austen Chamberlain's speech at the dinner of the Tariff Reform League may be assumed to end the connexion between the two subjects which stand at the head of this letter. This is the first disastrous result of Mr. Balfour's resignation of the leadership.
" Mr. Austen Chamberlain, responding, observed that Tariff Reform had become identified with the Unionist Party, and what- ever b.3 the succession to the leadership of the party in the House of Commons, whatever be their fortunes in the fight, by that policy in its fullest extent and over the whole field the party would stand or fall. Never had any question been more patiently and persistently put before tha electors. It had been discussed on every Unionist platform throughout the length and breadth of the land; every man and woman knew what they would do when they were returned to power. Without need for further mandate, sanction, or approbation, the moment a Unionist Government was returned to power it would set about putting their Tariff Reform propaganda, their principles of Imperial preference, and fair and equal treatment for our own people into statutory form, and would place these things without any delay and without any qualification on the Statute Book of the country."
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