[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR. "] SIR,—May I, as a
Conservative Free-trader, express my hearty concurrence with Colonel Pollock's letter in your last is sue which seems to me to put the case in a nutshell P For surely whatever the evils of Tariff Reform might be, they are not for a moment comparable to the chaos and the ruin which must flow from that policy of making the rich poorer in order to make the poor richer to which the present Government is pledged. Moreover, history tells us that there is no finality about tariffs, so that if the duties introduced proved oppres- sive they would speedily be reduced or repealed. When your correspondents speak of Free-trade they seem too often inclined to forget that freedom of imports is only a branch, and perhaps not the most important one, of the great and magnificent system of free exchange of which Cobden was the apostle. Freedom of production, as understood by him, is dead or dying in this country, and freedom of contract is going the same way. Is it any wonder, then, that the British manufacturer, harassed at every turn by the tax-gatherer and the Government inspector, should desire to place upon the shoulders of his foreign competitors some portion of the burdens under which he groans P—I am, Sir, &c.,
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