The Coming Tariff The Tariff Bill should gain the Lords'
assent in time for the new duties to come into force on Tuesday. Then the arguments that have been bandied to and fro for years will be put to the test of hard experience, but with the dice loaded in one respect, in that from the first moment vested interests profiting by the tariff will be built up, making it far more difficult to take any duty off than it ever was to put it on. At the same time the latest decisions regarding the free list are reassuring, particularly the addition to it of maize and the retention of meat. The Government has clearly taken the right line in both cases. Mr. Chamberlain's argument against the taxation of so essential a foodstuff as meat, with its inevitable bearing on the cost of living, was unanswerable, and for the taxation of maize there was never any case except the revenue it would bring in, almost entirely at the cost of the agriculture the Cabinet is so deeply pledged to foster. Everything now depends on whether the Government means to give the ten per cent. revenue tariff, with all the concomitants of Abnormal Importa- tion dues, McKenna duties and the rest, a fair test, or whether there is to be a steady upward pressure under the guise of " selective duties " on a much higher scale on particular commodities. If so, long and acrimonious conflicts are in store.
Previous page
