All that Lord Crewe really says is that it would
not do to tell the country an unpleasant fact. We disagree with him, since it is a fact, and a fact which it is essential that Free-traders should be made to understand. The main- tenance of Free-trade is inconsistent with the raising of vast sums of money, and it is idle to pretend that it is not. Whether the democracy are foolish or not does not matter; the fact remains that they will not consent to more than a limited amount of direct taxation. When this limit is reached, they prefer to be bled in the dark, as they are by a tariff. A tariff, of course, is a very bad and wasteful system of raising money, and pensions by means of a tariff will most certainly force the working classes to pay for their own pensions. Nevertheless, a tariff is a possible, though a very injurious, method of raising the money. No doubt the money might be raised by a system of indirect taxation which could be arranged so as not to be Protective in its character; but as practical men we are obliged to admit that such a scheme is not in the least likely to be adopted. Once given a tariff, although a tariff imposed primarily for revenue, and the Protectionists will soon find means to give it a. Protectionist bias. Vast expenditure is the causa caissons of the American tariff, a signal part of that vast expenditure being a thirty millions pension-list.
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