On Tuesday was published a letter from Mr. Chamberlain addressed
to Mr. Boscawen which contains the following statement :—" I have never suggested any tax whatever on raw materials, such as wool or cotton, and I believe that such a tax is entirely unnecessary for the purposes which I have in view, that is, for a mutual preference with our Colonies, and for enabling us to bargain for better terms with our foreign competitors. As regards food there is nothing in the policy of tariff reform which I have put before the country which need increase in the slightest degree the cost of living of any family in this country." This letter has been received with a chorus of relief and delight from the Protectionists, and has been paraded as proof that Mr. Chamberlain does not mean to tax the food of the people. In our opinion, it proves exactly the reverse. It shows by inference that Mr. Chamberlain does intend to tax bread and meat and other articles of diet, but that he is under the delusion that he can so manipulate our fiscal system that the rise in the price of food will be com- pensated for by a fall in other things, and so the cost of living to a family not be increased.
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