Mr. Snowden on Free Trade On Monday, Mr. Snowden spoke
on Free Trade at Manchester. His speech was one of those examinations of first principles which have been rare since the great days of the Tariff Reform controversy. It was, more. over, remarkable for its refusal to compromise at a time when the Prime Minister is, to say the least of it, going through the form of open discussion with the Dominion delegates. Mr. Snowden said that those who advocated Protection were really making a secret attack upon wages. He had heard it said that the Government were considering an all-round 10 per cent. import duty for revenue purposes. He gave that report the flattest contradiction. " No Government in which I am in charge of the national finances will ever give serious consideration to a proposal like that." Ile absolutely denied that tariffs would be a remedy for our ills. In the last fifty years Great Britain had increased her export trade per capita more than any other country in the world, and the wages in Protected countries on the Continent were only half of our own.
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