TOPICS OF THE DAY.
LORD ROSEBERY ON " TIED-HOUSE " IMPERIALISM.
TORD ROSEBERY'S speech is most welcome. It struck exactly the right note, and gave the most whole- hearted support to the contention which we have urged from the very beginning of the present controversy,—the contention that it is because we are Imperialists, and because we are determined to maintain the unity of the Empire, that we must refuse to abandon Free-trade, for Free-trade is the very foundation and corner-stone of the Empire. The economic need for Free-trade is great. The political need for it, as one of the essential forces that go to make up the Empire, is even greater. If we once adopt the principle of " tied-house " Imperialism, and infringe upon the freedom of the Colonies to model their own fiscal systems exactly as they choose, we shall have intro- duced into the Empire a principle which must in the end destroy it. It was because our fathers had the courage and the wisdom to say to the Colonies : "We give you true liberty—the liberty to do even what we ourselves think foolish—because we know that freedom is even greater than sound economics," that we have built the Empire on the rock, and have gathered round us daughter-States reayd to help us as the free nations of the Empire helped us during the war. What was it made the French-Canadian of Quebec, no less than the British Columbian, throw up his work to fight for the flag in South Africa ; what made the New Zealander leave his woods and waters, his fiords and mountains ; what drew the Australian from his sheep-folds and his mines ? Was it the belief that he was going to get a 10 per cent. preference for some of his goods in the British market? It is an outrage even to put the case as an hypothesis. He did not lend us his aid because of reasons like this, but because he loved the Motherland, saw her in trouble, and was determined to maintain that Empire which is his as much as ours. And why does he love the Motherland, and why does he mean to maintain the Empire? He loves the Motherland because it is his Motherland, and because since his own native land has come to man's estate the Motherland has treated that land like a full-grown man, and given freedom and confidence with no grudging hand. He is a free man in a free community, and is tied by no bonds, wise or unwise, except those of his own making. He is determined to maintain the Empire because, while leaving his native land free, it makes him part of a great community to which belong traditions more august than those belonging to any nation of antiquity or of modern days, whose present condition is strong and splendid, and whose life in future in all human proba- bility is destined to flow down in " one broadening, one continuous river."
But, it may be said, how does Mr. Chamberlain's policy interfere with this ? Granted that the Colonies are not loyal to the Empire because they want preferential duties, how will that loyalty be interfered with by our giving them a preference ? Those who have closely followed Mr. Chamberlain's speeches will not have failed to note the answer they provide to the question. Mr. Chamberlain, whose sincerity and honesty in this matter have been transparent, has always told us that he expects from the Colonies an exchange of benefits. We are to give them a preference, and they are to reserve for us as far as possible the monopoly of their home markets. It is true they are not expected to abandon their markets to us in respect of such home industries as they now possess, but they are expected not to extend those industries into new fields. What remains of the Colonial markets is to be ear-marked and carefully preserved for the British manu- facturer, and for him alone. He is to say to the Colonial manufacturer :—" Thus far and no further. 'I cannot ask you to abandon your present industries, but any develop- ment of your business on the grouhd not hitherto occupied by you I should regard as an encroachment on my rights and a breach of the agreement under which I give you a preference." Knowing what we do of the high spirit of the Colonial communities, can we believe that they would very long endure this position of the "tied house "? How long would it take for the cry to arise :—" Are we not to be allowed to foster this or that industry most suitable to our climate because the selfish manufacturers of Bradford [or Sheffield or Leeds, as the case may be] desire a monopoly ? We will not listen to their threats. Let them as an act of retaliation withdraw the preference to our corn and meat and wine if they dare. If the Mother- country cannot tolerate a new industry which is absolutely vital to our national life, let her see what it feels like to get on without • any Colonial Empire " ? Can any one of experience deny that such fierce feelings as these would be aroused by an attempt on our part to ' enforce a bargain of the " tied-house " nature such as Mr. Chamberlain suggests ? That the Colonies might in a fit of enthusiasm, and without clearly understanding what they were doing, agree to reserve to us alone the market for manufactured goods not at present appropriated by native industries, we can well believe. What we are certain of is that the first time their people at large desired to foster a new industry they would refuse to be bound by an agreement which they would declare they had never understood. We should then either have to submit, or face a bitter struggle in which we should find ourselves in a position we have not occupied for sixty years and more,—the position of denying to the Colonies the right to make their own fiscal arrangements as they please.
Perhaps it will be said that we are taking up strange ground for Free-traders, and are doing our best to preserve intact the right of the Colonies to maintain their Protective systems. We admit the truth of the in- dictment. We do desire that the Colonies should retain the most absolute fiscal freedom,—even the freedom to protect their own industries. We do this not because we think Protection may be sound in young communities. On the contrary, we think it just as foolish and just as wasteful there as at home. We defend the line we have taken because, in spite of the strength of our belief in Free-trade, we hold that freedom is greater than Free-trade. We would ten thousand times rather see the Colonies Protectionists of their own free will than Free-traders under coercion. We desire the Empire to last, and the bonds that unite us to our Colonies to grow firmer; and we know that this can only be through our abandonment of any claim to control the internal policy of the Colonies. One does not forbid a grown-up son to eat unwholesome food. If he deliberately chooses to be foolish in this respect, it is his own look-out, and the wise father will certainly not risk a quarrel with him on this account.
Lord Rosebery has put together with such admirable skill a list of the various occasions for friction with the Colonies which would be certain to arise if Mr. Chamber- lain's policy were adopted that we shall quote it verbatim. Every word of the following passage deserves the closest attention of all Britons who care for the welfare of the Empire :— " Now, I maintain, therefore, that there can be no fair or practicable Imperial tariff. It is acknowledged by its promoters that it cannot include raw material, and it cannot be satisfactory unless it includes wool and timber, which are raw materials. I believe, then, as I believed twenty years ago, when we were working on this in the Imperial Federation League, that any such system is doomed to failure. I say you cannot fix an Imperial tariff which will be satisfactory. Still less can you place an Empire on a schedule of forbidden industries. All that is left for you is to try to execute commercial treaties or understandings with each separate Colony. Where would be your commercial system then, and where would be the union of your Empire ? Everything periodically, perhaps annually, would have to be revised in our commercial relations with every Colony ? You would at last be subject in negotiation to the threat so unpleasant to hear and realise as a possibility that perhaps after that we had better cut- the painter.' Your Chancellor• of the Exchequer would be unceasingly engrossed in the attempt to conciliate wholly incompatible and antagonistic interests. Heaven preserve us from the bad blood which would be created under such a system. That is the plan, that is the whole plan, which is proposed to take the place of the present system, which is founded on absolute independende of action and absolute conciliation of individual interests. So far from preserving the integrity of the Empire, I honestly and conscientiously believe that any policy such as that advocated by the late Colonial Secretary would almost inevitably lead to its dismemberment. I have only, one more objection to mention, and it is this. I, as a profound and convinced Imperialist, do not wish our people at home at any time of scarcity or of depression or famine to weigh the interests of their material well-being against the conception of the Empire. It will be a bad day for Great Britain—it will be a worse day for the Empire 'at large—when the artisan returning to a stinted
meal—stinted by taxation—may say to his family, `Ali, things would have been very different had it not been for this Empire, for the preservation of which we are now so heavily taxed.' I do not wish that interest and that conception ever to be brought into antagonism. They are in perfect harmony now. For God's sake do not let us disturb that harmony."
We know that Lord Rosebery speaks here from the heart, for however much we have differed from him in the past, and however much we have criticised his actions, we have never for a moment doubted the sincerity of his Imperial- ism. He also, we believe, speaks to the hearts, not only of the people of these islands, but of the whole Empire.
Lord Rosebery might have added to his prophetic words that we know from the past what must happen in the future if we adopt the policy of a " tied-house Empire." We once possessed such an Empire,—an Empire in which the Colonies were bound to buy from us and we from them. What was the result? The Colonies before Free-trade were in a perpetual ferment of jealousy and suspicion and animosity at what they deemed unfair restraints. That Was bad. Equally bad was the result at home. At home men grew to loathe the Empire because it meant a per- petual restraint on trade. Our traders could not buy this or that raw product which they desired because we were pledged to get our raw material from the Colonies. It was this that caused the unpopularity of the Colonies, and that intolerance of the Empire which was so marked a feature of a large portion of our public opinion sixty years ago. The Empire was made to seem a, burden to our traders. That is the reason why Cobden and Bright and the trading classes they represented were, as we now can see, so prejudiced and so unfair in regard to the Empire. Their withers had been wrung by the burden of a " tied-house " Empire, just as were the withers of the Colonist. But with the establishment of Free-trade at home and com- plete fiscal liberty in the Colonies this feeling began to pass away, and by twenty years ago had died out, except in men over seventy. At the same time the desire for independence had disappeared in the Colonies. To an Empire resting on Free-trade and freedom all men could give allegiance. Yet so blind is Mr. Chamberlain to our history that he actually wishes, in the supposed interests of the Empire, to abandon a system which has given us a contented Empire, has made our people at home feel a love for and pride in the Colonies, and has made the Colonies thoroughly loyal. Incredible as it sounds, he wants to go back to a system which gave us a restless and distressed Empire, made our trading classes look on the Empire as nothing but a burden, and caused the Colonies to long for the time when they should have the power to become independent and to abandon the humiliating position of the " tied house."
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