TARIFF REFORM METHODS OF ELECTIONEERING. pro TR' EDITOR OF THE
"SPECTATOR."] Sin,—The account given by " Onlooker " in your issue of the 27th ult. of some features in the Tariff Reform campaign in the Border Burghs may or may not be exaggerated—I hope it is—but there is only too much reason to fear that Protection- ism in its present form is calculated to lend itself, to the adoption of such methods. of political controversy. I have always been a Conservative, and do not claim. to be an extreme Free-trader, and I think it most, probable that sixty years ago I would have opposed the policy of Sit' R. Peel. But it swills to me that Conservatives who support Proteotion.as a remedy for modern evils fail to realise the complete change of circum- stances that has occurred since those days, when the agri- cultural industry was still all-important, and it might have been possible to argue that its maintenance was as much a part of the nation's duty as her naval and military security. Whether for good or for evil, all this has now been changed, and agriculture is only one among the various industries of the country, each of which, organised and fostered under the Trade-Union system, seeks to assert itself and to Bemire Government "protection," nominally at the expense of the foreigner, but ultimately, as must inevitably follow, at the expense of other home industries. Hence political war- fare tends to develop into a battle of material interests, even us we see it in America and Australia ; and when this is so, the spirit of controversy becomes degraded, and consequently the appeal to individual cupidity in such a way as your correspondent describes will likewise follow, so-called " paternal government " being trans- formed into an ignoble readiness to shout with the crowd that happens to predominate in each particular con- stituency. It is for such reasons that the tendency which your oorrespondent note. is sure to appear,—of emulating the manners and methods of Socialism; and I will only add that I wish I could share his confidence that they are not likely to be politically advantageous.—I am, Sir, &c.,
W. S. D.
Previous page
