The British public, we fancy, has pretty well made up
its mind as to the value to us of the new Australian tariff, which, as Punch, excellently showed, raises the wall against us six feet and provides a stool six inches high to help us to climb over it. Such a preference, said the Times, is "almost derisory." Mr. Deakin, assuming, without any warrant whatever, that our exports to Australia will not be affected by the great rise in the tariff, calls the new arrangement "a gift" to us "valued at 21,500,000," This is a very indirect and overvalued kind of gift. And we are said to offer nothing in return. Yet the fact is that while Australia piles up impediments in the way of our trade, we put none in hers, and we moreover provide her with naval protection. One rubs one's eyes and wonders how far the Protectionist virus affects the brain before statements such as Mr. Deakin's can be made—as we have no doubt it was made—in all sincerity.
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