Lord Rosebery delivered a long speech on Mr. Chamber- lain's
proposals at a dinner of the Liberal League on Friday week. After vindicating the policy and methods of the Liberal League, and saying thatif the policy of the Govern- ment did not unite the Liberal party, that party was past all hope, Lord Rosebery turned to the proposals of the Colonial Secretary, which he was ready to admit had been put forward with a sincere desire to bring about the union of the Empire, and should be discussed in an Imperialist and not a party spirit. For himself, he adhered to his statement at Burnley that Free-trade was not a divine dispensation. Periodical inquiry into its operation was desirable, and discussion was not to be deprecated; but it should be calm discussion, not an inquiry introduced in a polemical storm for what appeared to
be Party purposes. The example of other Zollvereins in self- contained areas was misleading. In the British Empire distance was a preliminary obstacle fertile in disputes between com- peting sources of supply. Hence he did not think these proposals if carried would help to cement the Empire; while if not carried this ineffectual raising of the question would, perhaps, inflict irreparable damage by throwing the union of the Empire into the base arena of party politics. Again, if the proposals were realised, they would involve annual struggles with representatives from every part of the Empire, claiming revision of the tariff for their own special advantage, while at home they would constantly force the working classes to measure primary necessities against Imperial sentiment,—to the certain prejudice of the latter. In fine, Lord Rosebery declared the proposals to be not only intrinsically unsound and detrimental to the Empire, but dangerous from their premature introduction.
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