On Friday, November 13th, at the Dolphin dinner at Bristol,
Mr. Balfour spoke on the fiscal policy in a tone which we suppose was meant to show that the support which Sir Michael Hicks Beach tendered him and the Government later in the evening was a most natural proceeding. Mr. Balfour, after alluding to the time when the fiscal question had been an open one in the Unionist party, and to the fact that in the past six months it had become a matter of prime importance, expressed his regret that the question could not have remained open till the moment when the Cabinet had to act. The country, the House of Commons, and the Cabinet, however, would not have it so, and it became necessary for the Govern- ment to come to a declaration of policy in regard to fiscal reform. It adopted the policy of the fiscal reformers. "By a fiscal reformer I mean a man who, looking at the whole circumstances of his time and of his country, feels that some change, some deep and genuine change, is required in our fiscal system in order to enable us to deal with a situation which was not in existence when our present system was framed by our fathers and our grandfathers, a condition of which they never even dreamed." Mr. Balfour next described the present Government as "entirely in favour of fiscal reform," but went on to declare that, like all other Governments, they had differences outside the policy they had agreed upon.
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