In this matter we are in entire agreement with Lord
Cromer. We cannot get on without recourse to indirect taxation. But if we are to have indirect taxation, it will be much safer and much more profitable to have a sort of national octroi than a tariff which attempts to discriminate, and so to dictate what kinds of manufacture should be carried on here and what abroad. A 5 per cent. ad valorem port duty on everything that entered the United Kingdom, whether it were corn or petrol, beef or diamonds, would be a really productive tax. If, however, any attempt to make the tax protective were insisted upon, its power to produce revenue must be seriously impaired, if not destroyed. Tariff for revenue and tariff to keep out foreign goods are wholly incompatible. No power on earth can ever make them work together.
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