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PRICE ONE PENNY 
 
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 Tariff Reform as%^^ 
 Method of Raising 
 Revenue 
 
 By the 
 Right Hon. A. URE, M.P., 
 
 Lord Advocate 
 
 Published by CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD., 
 
 La Belle Sauvage, Ludgate Hill, London, E.C^ 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 COBDEN CLUB, Caxton House, Westminster, S.W. 
 
 1910 
 
Tariff Reform as a 
 
 Method of Raising 
 
 Revenue 
 
 BY THB 
 
 Right Hon. A. URE, M.P., 
 
 Lord Advocate 
 
 Published by CASSELL & COMPANY, LTD., 
 
 La Belle Sauvage, Ludgate Hill, London, E.G., 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 GOBDEN CLUB, Gaxton House, Westminster, S.W. 
 
 1910 
 

 ;> 
 
 u 
 
Tariff Reform as a Method 
 of Raising Revenue 
 
 As a method of raising revenue Tariff Reform was 
 undeniably the main issue at the General Election of 1910. 
 And it was a singularly relevant issue, for the expenditure 
 which the new taxation proposed by the Budget was 
 designed to meet was not challenged. The Budget had 
 been "referred to the judgment of the people " in order, as 
 Lord Lansdowne announced, that the people might have 
 an opportunity afforded them of saying whether they 
 desired that the increased expenditure — which no one 
 challenged^should be met by means of the Budget taxes 
 or by means of Tariff Reform. So far as the Budget was 
 concerned, that was the sole issue. At no time and by no 
 person was Tariff Reform put forward as a supplement 
 to the Budget or in substitution for some of the Budget 
 taxes. It was advanced exclusively as an alternative to the 
 Budget. This was made as clear in the Commons as in 
 the Lords. The Opposition leaders adopted the unusual 
 course of moving the rejection of the Bill both on third and 
 on second reading. They adopted the still more unusual 
 course of moving no specific amendment. The reason 
 given by their spokesman was explicit and free from 
 ambiguity. Here are the words used by Mr. Austen 
 Chamberlain, when moving, on the 6th June, 1909, that 
 the Finance Bill be read a second time three months from 
 that date: "It may be said that I offer no alternative 
 to the scheme which the Government has propounded. 
 That is true. . . . The alternative which we 
 have in mind is as well known to this House as it is 
 to the country. . . . We have every reason to be 
 
 3 458 5 G 
 
satisfied with the progress which our scheme makes on 
 the further consideration given to it by the country. It 
 may be alleged against me that I specify in my motion 
 no objection to any particular taxes that are included 
 in this Bill. ... I desire to direct the attention of 
 the House not to this or that individual tax, but to the 
 Budget proposals as a whole." And the speech closed 
 with these words: "If that (the Budget) be the highest 
 effort of Free Trade finance in dealing with a fiscal 
 emergency, then the sooner we take our two alterna- 
 tives to the country the better I shall be pleased." 
 This was the attitude maintained by the Opposition 
 with unbroken consistency throughout the Budget cam- 
 paign in the House and in the country. No discrimina- 
 tion was ever made among the Budget taxes. The Budget 
 was treated as a whole, and condemned as a whole. 
 The alternative, and the only alternative propounded, 
 by which it was asserted the unchallenged expenditure 
 could be met, was Tariff Reform. It is undeniable, there- 
 fore, that the plain issue presented to the country, so far 
 as the Budget was concerned, was : Shall this admitted 
 need for increased expenditure be met by the Budget taxes 
 or by means of Tariff Reform ? Now, this being the 
 issue, it is profoundly significant that neither before nor 
 during the progress of the Election did any responsible 
 Opposition leader even attempt to show how this addition 
 to the national expenditure could be met, apart from the 
 Budget taxes. And the significance of this silence is 
 deepened by the fact that there was then, and is now, in 
 existence a scheme of Tariff Reform promulgated by their 
 Chief to which all the Opposition leaders have given in 
 their definite adhesion. As it is the one and only Tariff 
 Reform plan for raising revenue which has ever been 
 authoritatively propounded, it merits the closest attention. 
 A careful examination of its proposals will reveal the reason 
 why it was kept in the background at the precise moment 
 
when its production was vital and essential. This — the 
 only extant plan of Tariff Reform officially proclaimed and 
 unreservedly adopted by the responsible leaders of the 
 Opposition — appeared at Birmingham on the 14th Novem- 
 ber, 1907. 
 
 The circumstances under which it made its appearance 
 were striking. The militant and official elements in the 
 Tory Party were restive and discontented. Judged by 
 their public utterances, the members of the Front Oppo- 
 sition Bench were still at sixes and sevens on what all of 
 them regarded as the momentous question of the day — 
 so far as their party fortunes were concerned. Tariff 
 Reform still remained the first plank in the constructive 
 programme of the party ; and yet no two of the leaders 
 of the party were agreed on the question what that plank 
 was to be. For the first time since the commencement of 
 the "raging, tearing propaganda" these differences were 
 composed, and a plan was produced which met with 
 the unanimous and enthusiastic approval of all. 
 The occasion was the annual meeting of the National 
 Union of Conservative Associations. It was held at 
 Birmingham, appropriately enough, on the 14th of 
 November, 1907. It was attended by all the leading 
 lights of the Tariff Reform movement. Revenue was 
 the first thought in their minds. They were still smarting 
 under the taunt of broken promises about Old Age 
 Pensions, and were determined to point the way to their 
 fulfilment. Mr. Chaplin, who moved the resolution, sub- 
 sequently adopted with unanimity and enthusiasm, said 
 that the reform of our fiscal system "was absolutely 
 essential if we are to make progress in the direction of 
 Social Reform, whether it be for Old Age Pensions or 
 any other reform on which the Unionist Party might 
 decide." And Mr. Bonar Law said, emphatically, that 
 "Fiscal Reform was tied up with Social Reform. They 
 could not get money in any other way. The resources 
 
of existing taxation were exhausted. Money needed for 
 Social Reform must be got by widening the basis of 
 taxation. Fiscal Reform, therefore, was one of the best 
 and greatest of all Social Reforms." 
 
 It is thus beyond all dispute that the attention of the 
 assembled Tories was concentrated on Tariff Reform as 
 a method of raising the additional revenue which it was 
 then foreseen would be required to meet increased expendi- 
 ture on Social Reforms. The marching order to "talk 
 unemployment" had not then gone forth. And when 
 the Leader of the Opposition addressed the gathering this 
 was the aspect of Tariff Reform to which he devoted his 
 attention. He took as his text the resolution which 
 had been submitted to and unanimously adopted by the 
 assembled delegates. 
 
 "That resolution," he said, "divides the question into 
 four heads — broadening the basis of taxation, safeguard- 
 ing our great productive industries from unfair compe- 
 tition, strengthening your position for the purpose of 
 negotiation in foreign markets, and establishing pre- 
 ferential commercial arrangements with the Colonies, and 
 securing for British producers and workmen a further 
 advantage over foreign competitors in the Colonial 
 markets." 
 
 Mr. Balfour then pointed out that from any one of 
 these four propositions the whole policy might be 
 approached. He deliberately chose as his avenue of 
 approach "the revenue side," the point of view which was 
 represented by the resolution which dealt with the basis 
 of taxation. The broadening of the basis of taxation, 
 he said, is "absolutely necessary, in my judgment, for 
 revenue pTjrposes, and if we had no Colonies, and no 
 such thing in existence as commercial treaties, it would 
 be necessary for us, for purposes of revenue, and revenue 
 alone, to broaden the basis of taxation." It is thus 
 clear that Mr. Balfour— in this respect in complete agree- 
 
ment with his lieutenants— addressed himself to the 
 "task of outlining a plan of Tariff Reform which 
 would raise the money requisite to meet the increasing 
 needs of the nation." That plan was then, for the first 
 time, set forth by him in a series of distinct propositions, 
 which, in his opinion, were incontrovertible by fiscal 
 reformers, and leave no room for doubt or uncertainty 
 as to the precise nature of the plan. 
 
 These propositions are : First. The duties should be 
 widespread. Second. The duties should be small. 
 Third. The duties should not touch raw material. 
 Fourth. The duties should not alter the proportion in 
 which the working classes are asked to contribute to the 
 cost of government. It was by a plan of Tariff Reform 
 embodying and giving effect to these four essential 
 features that Mr. Balfour proposed to find the money to 
 finance the Social Reforms which he clearly saw lay before 
 us. 
 
 "I ask now," he said, "how is Mr. Asquith going to 
 find the money for his Social Reform on the present basis 
 of taxation ? He is fond of asking questions of those who 
 have no responsibility. I ask him who is responsible, 
 and how he means to do it I cannot conceive." He then 
 proceeded to point out that Social Reform in the past had 
 been, in his opinion, mainly the work of the Tory Party, 
 and that they alone were in a position to find the necessary 
 money, and that by abandoning Free Trade finance. 
 
 Now, if careful attention is given to these four plain 
 and, as Mr. Balfour says, practically incontrovertible 
 propositions, it is by no means difficult to construct the 
 plan of Tariff Reform which was in his mind, and which 
 was then, and is now, the plan adopted by the whole 
 Tory Party in order to find revenue. The first essential 
 feature of this new method of raising revenue is the wide- 
 spread character of the duties. They must, said Mr. 
 Balfour, be numerous, "because if you require revenue, 
 
8 
 
 and your duties are small, you must have many articles of 
 consumption subject to those duties." 
 
 How numerous the duties are to be no one has ever 
 said. And it really does not signify. What is certain 
 is that they will embrace as few classes of commodities as 
 may be; for widespread duties have long ago been finally 
 abandoned by all sound financiers all over the world as 
 being the most wasteful and least business-like means of 
 raising revenue. 
 
 The cost of collection always tends to eat up 
 the yield. No man has ever defended them, or 
 can defend them, as revenue raising expedients. The 
 inevitable tendency of all modern finance is to concentrate 
 duties upon very few articles in widespread use. The 
 cost of collection is a burden quite fatal to the levy of 
 widespread duties for revenue purposes. The propo- 
 sition that, in the new tariff, the duties must be wide- 
 spread meets with no favour or support from any intel- 
 ligent financier. It is an obsolete doctrine, and has never 
 been so much as referred to by any Tariff Reformer since 
 the Birmingham speech. 
 
 But, next, the duties must be small. Small is a relative 
 term, meaning a very different thing on the lips of the 
 rich man from what it signifies to the very poor. How 
 small are the new duties to be ? 
 
 It is unnecessary to speculate on this head ; for, 
 as Mr. Balfour explained, his reasons for keeping the 
 duties low is "because it is small duties which do not 
 interfere with the natural course either of production or 
 consumption." The duties must, therefore, be so small 
 as not to hinder production or consumption. Now, no 
 one denies that a lo per cent, duty would so intei.'ere. 
 Every Tariff Reformer asserts that it would, and supports 
 it on that very ground. The lo per cent, duty on 
 manufactured articles proposed by Mr. Chamberlain 
 was expressly designed to "interfere with the natural 
 
course of production," and to direct it into domestic 
 channels. 
 
 The only duty ever put forward throughout the con- 
 troversy as a "small" duty was Mr. Chamberlain's 5 per 
 cent, on meat and dairy produce. This is the duty which 
 Mr. Balfour and his lieutenants obviously mean when 
 they speak of "small duties." From this position they 
 have never receded. This proposal they have never 
 modified or altered. By 5 per cent, duties, levied for 
 revenue purposes, they still stand firm. 
 
 But the question remains, on what classes of com- 
 modities is this 5 per cent, duty to be levied ? The answer 
 given by Mr. Balfour, and approved by all his followers, 
 is ''not on raw materials.'' What are these raw materials ? 
 The answer is easy. Raw materials are goods brought to 
 our ports from across the seas, which, on their way from 
 the ship's side to the consumer, pass through some opera- 
 tion performed by the hands of a workman resident in 
 Great Britain ; or, to use the language of the Board of 
 Trade returns, articles "requiring to pass through some 
 process of adaptation or combination before entering into 
 consumption." This is the only possible definition of 
 "raw materials." None other has ever been attempted. 
 The duties, therefore, plainly must fall exclusively on 
 manufactured articles which reach our ports from across 
 the seas and then pass unchanged straight to the con- 
 sumer. In other words — the words of the President of 
 the Tariff Reform League — the duties which are to raise 
 the revenue must fall on "finished foreign manufactures." 
 Now a duty on "finished foreign manufactures" would 
 unquestionably answer Mr. Balfour's first requirement — 
 that the duties should be numerous. For, in the classifica- 
 tion of imported articles in use since January of the present 
 year, the number of headings separately specified which 
 would be included in Class A (articles wholly manufac- 
 tured) is about 150. The total number of headings in the 
 
JO 
 
 import list is about 800. And some of the 150 headings 
 cover a variety of commercially different articles. It is 
 plain, therefore, that duties confined to "finished foreign 
 manufactures" would be correctly described as "wide- 
 spread." But all this being clear, the vital question at 
 once emerges : Is food to be excluded ? To this question 
 Mr. Balfour returned what any economist would call 
 a clear and decided answer in the affirmative. For, to 
 tax food would grievously violate Mr. Balfour's fourth 
 proposition — that the new taxation, whatever it may be, 
 must not alter the proportion in which the working man 
 contributes to the revenue. Indeed, no responsible 
 politician has ever proposed food taxes as a means of 
 raising revenue, not merely because of their unpopularity, 
 but because their imposition for that purpose and with 
 that effect would mean a violation of the first rule of sound 
 taxation — that men should be asked to contribute accord- 
 ing to their ability to pay. To raise revenue by means of 
 food taxes means the converse. The smaller a man's 
 income the larger is the proportion of his contribution to 
 the cost of government if the national revenue be raised 
 by food taxes. With food taxes barred, then, on the one 
 hand, and with raw material barred on the other hand, 
 the classes of goods from which the additional revenue is 
 to be derived are at once seen. It must come from small 
 duties — that is to say, 5 per cent, duties — to be levied, 
 as the President of the Tariff Reform League tells us, on 
 "finished foreign manufactures." 
 
 The question is, how much revenue can we derive from 
 small duties levied on these "finished foreign manufac- 
 tures." That question — which is, of course, vital — has not 
 yet been faced by any Tariff Reformer. It is compara- 
 tively simple, and hence the reason for the omission to con- 
 sider it must be sought elsewhere than in its complexity. 
 If we turn to the Board of Trade Returns for the year 
 1908 — the latest complete year for which we have the full 
 
II 
 
 returns — we find that, of "articles completely manufac- 
 tured and ready for consumption," we imported ^^54. 8 
 millions from all sources. From foreign countries came 
 ;i^5i-8 millions, and from British Colonies and Pos- 
 sessions came ^3 millions. But in the same year we 
 re-exported no less than ;^io millions' worth of "articles 
 completely manufactured and ready for consumption." 
 We are, therefore, left with £^4-S millions of "finished 
 foreign manufactures " from which to derive our additional 
 revenue, by means of "small duties." Now a small duty 
 — i.e., a 5 per cent, duty — on these articles would yield a 
 revenue of less than ;^2, 250,000, and that only on the 
 assumption that the duty had no effect in diminishing the 
 import, that is to say, in interfering "with the natural 
 course either of production or consumption." But there 
 falls to be deducted the additional cost of collection, which 
 has been cautiously estimated by the Board of Trade at 
 ;^75o,ooo per annum. If, then, from the amount of the 
 yield of the duty, ;{;2, 250,000, we, deduct the cost of 
 collection, ;^75o,ooo, the revenue to be received is 
 ;^i, 500,000, just the amount necessary to pay for three- 
 fourths of one "Dreadnought." And there is nothing left 
 for social reform, which all Tariff Reformers unite in 
 saying is the sole raison d'etre of their specific. 
 
 The reason why Tariff Reformers of all shades per- 
 sistently refuse to face the question of the revenue raising 
 capacity of their scheme is manifest. Their silence on this 
 head at the time when this, and this alone, was the vital 
 and relevant issue — viz., when the Budget had been 
 "referred to the judgment of the country" — requires no 
 explanation. No alternative method of raising the neces- 
 sary revenue was advanced because the Tory Party was 
 finally committed to a tariff of numerous "small duties" 
 on "finished foreign manufactures," and that plan 
 obviously could not bear examination. The complete 
 collapse, at the recent General Election, of Tariff Reform 
 
12 
 
 as a method of raising revenue is easily explicable when- 
 ever the sole plan for that purpose put forward by the 
 leaders of the movement is subjected to scrutiny. For it 
 must not be forgotten that Mr. Balfour did not stand alone 
 in propounding the new scheme. It was received by the 
 Tariff Reformers among his followers with a universal 
 chorus of approval. It was blessed at once and on the 
 spot by Mr. Chaplin, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, and Mr. 
 Bonar Law. After due consideration of its details, Mr. 
 Austen Chamberlain repeated his approval at Edinburgh 
 on December nth and at Acock's Green on December 
 i6th. Mr. Lyttelton blessed it at Coatbridge on Decem- 
 ber 23rd, and attributed to it the blessed result that "the 
 Unionist Party was once more a living force." And Lord 
 Lansdowne, speaking with all the authority of his great 
 position as Leader of the Tory Party in the House of 
 Lords, said at Glasgow on December 13th that "the large 
 majority of the party was ready to accept the policy laid 
 down with so much clearness by Mr. Balfour in the great 
 speech he delivered at Birmingham." No man in the 
 party has ever at any time disclaimed Mr. Balfour's plan. 
 By all it was accepted as the long-sought-for cement by 
 which to bind together a, riven party. By all it was 
 acclaimed solely as a means of raising revenue for social 
 reform. Mr. Balfour had nothing to say of the other three 
 heads into which, as he said, the resolution he was support- 
 ing divided itself. In this silence his followers have, with 
 unbroken unanimity, followed his example. First of the 
 remaining three heads comes "Safeguarding our great pro- 
 ductive industries from unfair competition." On this head 
 Mr. Balfour and all his followers have preserved unbroken 
 silence. Obviously so; for really this problem, if it be a 
 problem, has no relation whatever to Tariff Reform. A 
 tariff offers no remedy whatever for unfair competition, as 
 distinguished from fair and legitimate competition. It 
 strikes at both alike. It does not and cannot discriminate 
 
13 
 
 between the fair and the unfair. Nothing but the absolute 
 exclusion of the offending goods can afford the slightest 
 protection against unfair competition — as was found in 
 the case of prison-made brushes and mats. A tariff for 
 revenue, Mr. Balfour's plan, admits the goods, but makes 
 them dearer, and that whether they compete fairly or 
 unfairly. Whenever, therefore, revenue ceases to be the 
 object of the tariff, and the tariff is sought to be used as 
 a weapon of exclusion, it ceases to play any part in the 
 true fiscal controversy. As a mere weapon of exclusion, 
 whether "work for all" or protection from "unfair com- 
 petition " be the aim, a tariff is a clumsy, costly and in- 
 effective instrument. But the point is that it is only a 
 weapon of exclusion, inferior to and less reliable in its 
 operation than absolute exclusion. By absolute exclusion 
 alone is it possible to discriminate between fair compe- 
 tition, which the Tariff Reformer will allow, and the 
 unfair, which he seeks to destroy. Hence it is never 
 more than mentioned by the Tariff Reformer. Clear 
 sighted men never advance a tariff where unemploy- 
 ment is their theme and work for the workless is their 
 aim. Obviously no tariff can be relied on to exclude 
 undesirable foreign goods altogether from our markets, 
 and so give our own people the making of them. For 
 this purpose a tariff has been completely superseded by 
 the system of absolute exclusion, effected by applying to 
 the goods sought to be shut out Section 42 of the Customs 
 Consolidation Act, 1876. In the only instance known 
 in which competition thought to be unfair was sought to 
 be met, this was the system adopted. The undesirable 
 goods were articles made in foreign prisons. In 1897 ^ 
 statute was passed (60 and 61 V. c. 63) to keep these 
 articles out of this country. Nobody ever dreamt of em- 
 ploying a tariff to effect this purpose. What was done was 
 this : foreign prison-made goods were simply added to 
 the table of prohibitions contained in Section 42 of the 
 
14 
 
 Customs Consolidation Act, 1876. The goods set out in 
 that table are absolutely prohibited to be imported into 
 the United Kingdom. If the offending goods are brought 
 in, they are forfeited and may at once be destroyed. 
 
 Questions of unemployment and unfair foreign compe- 
 tition, as is now recognised, do not fall within the domain 
 of Tariff Reform at all. The sole topic of inquiry which 
 these questions raise is this — what particular classes of 
 goods ought at any given time to be excluded from our 
 markets? — a difficult and delicate inquiry, no doubt, but 
 one which has no relation whatever to the levying of 
 customs duties at the ports. Hence the complete exclusion 
 of these questions from the official and authorised plan of 
 Tariff Reform, as clearly laid down at the Birmingham 
 convention. On the second of the three remaining heads 
 — "Strengthening your position for the purpose of negotia- 
 tion in foreign markets" — Mr. Balfour, at Birmingham 
 and ever since, has maintained unbroken silence. So also 
 have his followers — appropriately enough. For here, too, 
 the tariff is not used for revenue purposes, but the reverse. 
 To achieve "the purpose of negotiation " the tariff is put 
 on in order that it may be taken off. If the object for 
 which it is laid on is accomplished, then the tariff must 
 come off. This, however, is a cumbrous, costly, and futile 
 weapon, although the best that protected states possess. 
 A Free Trade country like Great Britain is in a much 
 better position to negotiate in foreign markets than is 
 any protected country. She can, by a simple and easily 
 applied expedient — absolute exclusion — force any foreign 
 state to modify its tariff in her favour. Once again 
 absolute exclusion is much the better weapon if it 
 ever becomes desirable to employ such a weapon at 
 all. But no attempt has ever yet been made even to 
 figure the conditions under which this use of a tariff 
 could possibly succeed. In truth, it never could succeed. 
 Reciprocity or retaliation, to use the expression commonly 
 
15 .•;.•■■• 
 
 employed to cover Mr. Balfour's "strengthening your 
 position for the purpose of negotiation in foreign markets," 
 always has proved a ludicrous failure. To speak of it 
 in the same breath as Tariff Reform— that is to say, 
 tariff for revenue — is grotesque and fatuous. Tariff 
 Reformers have, long ago, abandoned this particular form 
 of the heresy. If it ever became necessary or desirable to 
 employ a weapon for bargaining. Great Britain has the 
 most powerful weapon at command, the application of 
 Section 42 of the Customs Act of 1876. In the case of a 
 country which imports on a scale as vast as does the 
 United Kingdom, this weapon, for swiftness and direct- 
 ness of action and certainty of aim, far surpasses a tariff. 
 The last of the three heads is "Establishing pre- 
 ferential commercial arrangements with the Colonies " — 
 in other words, "Colonial Preference." Mr. Balfour's 
 rigid silence on this head in his Birmingham speech 
 is not difficult to explain. "Colonial Preference" never 
 has been put forward as a means of raising revenue. 
 It cannot. For, although food taxes are essential to any 
 scheme of Colonial Preference, they are to be so adjusted 
 as "not to alter the proportion in which the working 
 classes are asked to contribute to the cost of Govern- 
 ment." The effect of this adjustment is, as Mr. Chamber- 
 lain himself pointed out, not to yield a revenue, but to 
 cause a gap in the revenue — a gap more than big enough 
 to swallow up the yield of the duties on "finished foreign 
 manufactures," a gap to fill up which Mr. Chamberlain 
 proposed the now famous 10 per cent. duty. The discreet 
 silence always observed by Mr. Balfour and his Tariff 
 Reform friends about their plan of Colonial Preference 
 is due to the fact that they know well that Colonial Prefer- 
 ence, according to any conceivable plan, would be fatal 
 to the idea of obtaining revenue and equally fatal to the 
 notion that better commercial terms with our Continental 
 neighbours would be secured if only we too had a tariff. 
 
i6 
 
 The reverse is true. Colonial Preference can never yield 
 a revenue without increasing the burden on the shoulders 
 of the labouring classes. And it can never help "negotia- 
 tion in foreign markets," for the duties necessary to secure 
 Colonial Preference cannot be altered or repealed at will. 
 They are and must be fixed and unalterable save only by 
 mutual consent or by denunciation of the treaty either by 
 the Mother Country or by the Colony affected. They can- 
 not be taken off and put on at will to suit the exigencies of 
 diplomatic negotiation. In short, not one of the four heads 
 into which Mr. Balfour divided the famous resolution 
 which united his party can be achieved without doing fatal 
 damage to the others. The conclusion of the whole matter 
 is that Tariff Reform as a means of raising the additional 
 revenue admittedly required for social reform was brought 
 to the test at the General Election of 1910. It suffered 
 hopeless collapse. By universal admission it is now 
 abandoned for that purpose. The Budget taxes have been 
 accepted as the only means by which that revenue can be 
 raised. Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the 
 fact that these taxes have been accepted by a party which 
 disliked them, which asserted that a decisive majority of 
 the electors disliked them, and which had it in its power 
 to reject them. Acceptance of the Budget taxes under 
 these circumstances could have only one meaning — an 
 unqualified admission that by them and by them alone 
 could the admitted needs of the country be met. In other 
 words. Tariff Reform had at once been found out and 
 found wanting. Another and a better way had been found 
 to supply the great and growing necessities of the country 
 — a way by which the burden is apportioned according to 
 the strength of those on whose shoulders it must rest. As 
 a means of raising the national revenue, Tariff Reform 
 has vanished. It survives only as a poor and inferior 
 weapon for the exclusion of foreign goods from our ports. 
 
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