Owing to the number of important Parliamentary debates which have
taken place since our lee, issue, we cannot attempt to summarise the remainder of the Tariff Reform discussion, concluded on Friday week by a division in which the Govern- ment majority was 169 (276 to 107), except to say that Mr. Balfour made a speech compounded in equal parts of evasion and paradox. He appears to be quite unable to understand the true meaning of Free-trade, or why it is that ite advocates support it. We must note, however, that Mr. Churchill, in closing the debate on the Free-trade side, used language which, in our opinion, is likely to prove injurious to the cause of Free- trade. Instead of pointing out, like Peel, that you can only effectually fight Protective tariffs with Free-trade, and that Retaliation is useless, he declared that he saw no reason to assume that a Free-trade Government was obliged to sit still with folded hands. "I have always been careful to say that Retaliation as an occasional weapon may possibly be used.
While I am responsible for the Board of Trade I am not going to deny that the British Government possess absolute freedom over all revenue duties, and may use them as they may choose and please for the advance of the commercird and trade interests of the country."
Previous page
