Under the head of "Our Walking Inquiries" the Daily Mail
published on Saturday last the first of a series of reports on the fiscal policy as it is understood by the working classes. The writer traversed a great part of England—the Midlands, Lancashire, Cumberland, Northumberland, part of Scotland, the Potteries, and the West Country—on foot, and has sum- marised in a most instructive report the results of upwards of two thousand conversations with the wage-earning classes on the subject of the hour. Only in Sheffield did he find evidence of strong support to Mr. Chamberlain's proposals. Birming- ham, though warm in support of Mr. Chamberlain himself, was apathetic as regards his proposals. At Crewe he could not find a single railwayman who was not convinced that he was about to be ground between falling dividends and the increasing price of food should Mr. Chamberlain succeed. The shipping districts were violently anti-Chamberlain," and so, too, were the small tradesmen, while in Scotland, Cumber- land, Northumberland, the northern part of Yorkshire, and Lancashire Mr. Chamberlain's scheme is being discussed "without much prejudice, with very great intelligence, but with no enthusiasm." Here "no amount of reasoning could persuade the people that an increase in the price of food would raise wages and salaries." Here too—and this is most significant—the inquirer was asked again and again whether he did not think that in order to satisfy the Colonic,' we should have to give them so much that the scheme would be unworkable. In short, where his interlocutors were not apathetic or ignorant, he met with a monotonous opposition to the food taxes amongst the working classes.
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