Lord Rosebery, who has undertaken to address a series of
meetings in Cornwall, spoke at Penzance on Wednesday night, and criticised Mr. Chamberlain's policy with a happy mixture of seriousness and raillery. He suggested that the Tariff Reform League should send two or three of their number to Canada, Australia, and our other Colonies to discuss with fiscal experts on the spot on what basis it was possible to frame a treaty uniting the Empire in a fiscal union without taxing raw materials and food. If the various interests involved approved of it, we should then at least have something tangible to go upon. But though Mr. Chamberlain's schemes were ill-considered and violent, we should not be ungrateful to him, for he was the only member of the Tory party who showed any sport at all. The ordinary Tory member, continued Lord Rosebery, was like a sandwich. man who had got a placard in front with "Vote for Balfour" and a placard behind with "Sympathy for Chamberlain." Turning to the question of the unemployed, Lord Rosebery pointed out that we could not deal on an identical basis with those who could and would work, with those who could not work, and with those who would not work. The question must be dealt with by system and not by impulse ; but money might be worse spent by the incoming Government than by sub- sidising General Booth to work out this problem. The roots of unemployment lay deep down in our social and moral structure. If they were all teetotalers or Methodists there would be little want of employment. He did not accuse the unemployed of intemperance, but he trusted the next genera- tion would be better fitted for the work of the nation.
Previous page
