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 A DECADE or 
 TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 A RETROSPECT 
 BY THElCOBDEN CLUB 
 
 Published by the COBDEN CLUB, Broadway Court, 
 
 Westminster, S.W., and 
 
 Printed by CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD., 
 
 La Belle Sauvage, Ludgate Hill, London, E.C. 
 1913 
 
CoBDEN Club Publications. 
 
 The Revolt in Canada against the New Feudalism. 
 
 Tariff History from the Revision of 1907 to the Uprising 
 of the Farmers and Graingrowers of the West in 1910. 
 By Edward Porritt. Price is. net, bound in red cloth 
 and fully indexed. 
 
 The Collapse of Tariff Reform : Mr. Chamberlain's Case 
 Exposed. By J. M. Robertson, M.P., with an Introduction 
 by the Right Hon. Russell Rea, M.P. Price is. net, 
 bound in red cloth and fully indexed. 
 
 My "Two Capitals" Theory: An Interpretation. By 
 
 Adam Smith, Redivivus. Price id. 
 
 The Revolt in Canada against Protection. Price id. 
 
 The Tariff Swindle. By John M. Robertson, M.P. 
 Price 6d. net. 
 
A Decade of 
 Tariff Fooling 
 
 ERRATA 
 
 Page 32, line 20, for " ropes " read " hopes." 
 Page 31, in Table of Exports and Imports, first line, for 
 " Woollen Tissues " read " VVoollen Yarns " 
 
 CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED 
 London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 
 
 MCMXIII 
 

 PREFACE 
 
 Two decennial anniversaries must appeal to Tariff 
 Reformers as specially deserving of commemoration — the 
 one of May 15th, 1903, when Mr. Chamberlain, at a 
 meeting at Birmingham, propounded his scheme of 
 Imperial Preference, to be effected by the imposition of 
 taxes on all food imported into the United Kingdom, as 
 the only means by which the British Empire could be 
 mantained in its integrity, and when he called upon the 
 working classes to submit to the burden of increased cost 
 of living in the interest of the Empire; the other of 
 October 6th, in the same year, when, at a meeting at 
 Glasgow, he inaugurated a campaign on behalf of a far 
 wider and more definite and complete scheme of duties on 
 all imports, including manufactures as well as food, which 
 was intended to overthrow the whole policy of Free Trade, 
 and when it was announced, as a new discovery, that 
 import duties, especially those on food, would not raise 
 prices to consumers, but would be paid by the foreigner. 
 
 The first of these anniversaries was allowed to pass 
 unnoticed and uncommemorated by Tariff Reformers — 
 perhaps from a remorseful recollection that Food Taxes 
 and effective Preference had been indefinitely postponed 
 by the Unionist Party. It is not, however, to be 
 expected that the second and more important of these 
 anniversaries will be allowed to pass with the same 
 oblivion on the part of the leaders of the movement, 
 iii 
 
 iw32;?548 
 
PREFACE 
 
 for one-half of their scheme — that of the reversal of 
 Free Trade by the imposition of duties on manufactured 
 goods — still survives, and has been announced as the 
 principal plank of the Unionist Party. 
 
 In expectation and anticipation, then, of this celebra- 
 tion by Tariff Reformers, the Cobden Club has prepared 
 an antidote in the form of a brief history of the move- 
 ment as it appears from the point of view of Free 
 Traders, recalling the glaring misstatements on which it 
 was founded, and comparing the results of ten years 
 of wonderfully progressive trade with the dismal pro- 
 phecies of decadence and ruin which formed the main 
 stock-in-trade of Tariff-mongers. 
 
 The Club, from the inception of the movement, de- 
 nounced Tariff Reform as a fraud. In "Fact v. Fiction," 
 issued soon after Mr. Chamberlain's campaign of 1903, 
 it exposed in scathing terms his misstatements and 
 fallacies, and ridiculed his predictions. Later, in "Tariff 
 Makers," it dealt in the same spirit with the sham 
 inquiries held by the self-constituted Tariff Commission 
 on some of the principal industries of this country, and 
 exposed their futility and absurdity. 
 
 The Club can now compare the confidence which it then 
 expressed in the future progress of trade, founded on the 
 principle of Free Trade, with the woeful predictions of 
 the Tariff-mongers, which ten years of experience have 
 so completely falsified. This, it is hoped, will be sufficient 
 justification for repeating many passages from these 
 earlier issues in the following pages. 
 
 The Club desires to express its great obligation to Lord 
 Eversley, who has borne the main burden of preparing 
 this work, as he did that of "Fact v. Fiction" in 1904, 
 and of "Tariff Makers" in 1910. 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 I.— The Birth of a Heresy 
 
 PAOE 
 I 
 
 II.— The Tariff Reform League 
 
 9 
 
 III.— Report on the Cotton Industry... 
 
 14 
 
 IV.— Report on Agriculture 
 
 18 
 
 v.— Other Inquiries 
 
 24 
 
 VL— Tariff Reform a Party Plank ... 
 
 31 
 
 VII.— The "Volt^-face" of 19 13 
 
 38 
 
 VIIL— The Passing of Tariff Reform ... 
 
 44 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 The Birth of a Heresy 
 
 On October 6th, 1903, ten years back from the present 
 time, Mr. Chamberlain, at a great meeting at Glasgow, 
 the first of a series in the principal centres of 
 trade and industry, launched his scheme of fiscal revo- 
 lution, to which the specious, but misleading, title of 
 Tariff Reform was given. It was an attack on Free Trade, 
 the great achievement of Peel and Cobden, along the 
 whole line. Free Trade was denounced as "a futile super- 
 stition " and an "inept prejudice." The country was asked 
 to revert to a policy of protective duties, not only on im- 
 ported manufactured goods, but on food of all kinds, with 
 exemption in favour of Colonial products. Raw produce 
 was to be exempt. So also was bacon as the food of the 
 labouring classes, and maize as the food of cattle. With 
 these exceptions everything imported was to be taxed ; food 
 at the rate of about 5 per cent., manufactures at an average 
 of 10 per cent. The day and the speech of the great 
 tribune will always be remembered as the birth of this 
 scheme, which, for years later, was the subject of a 
 "tearing, raging propaganda." 
 
 Five months earlier, Mr. Chamberlain, at a meeting 
 
 at Birmingham on May 15th, 1903, while still a leading 
 
 member of Mr. Balfour's Cabinet, had propounded a part 
 
 of this scheme, that of duties on food with exemption 
 
 a 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 for Colonial produce. It was then proposed with the ex- 
 press and sole object of binding the Empire together by a 
 scheme of fiscal preferences. It was asserted that this 
 could only be effected by raising import duties on 
 food. It was admitted that it would entail a sacrifice 
 on the part of the labouring classes of this country. 
 "What will it cost you?" Mr. Chamberlain said. . . . 
 "What do the Colonies ask? They ask a preference on 
 their particular products. You cannot give them — at least, 
 it would be futile to offer them — a preference on manu- 
 factures, because at the present time the exported manufac- 
 tures of the Colonies are entirely insignificant. You 
 cannot, in my opinion, give them a preference on raw 
 material . . . Therefore, if you wish to have preference, 
 if you wish to prevent separation, you must put a tax on 
 food. The murder is out ! " 
 
 At this time there was no suggestion of duties on 
 foreign manufactured goods imported into this country 
 for the purpose of affording protection to native indus- 
 tries. Whatever may have been in the inner mind of Mr. 
 Chamberlain, he confined himself at this Birmingham meet- 
 ing to the policy of "Imperial Preference," to be carried 
 out by levying import duties on food. It was admitted 
 that they would raise the price of food ; but the labouring 
 classes were asked to bear this burden for the purpose of 
 maintaining the integrity of the Empire, in the only way 
 which was then thought feasible. Mr. Chamberlain, 
 shortly after the Birmingham meeting, showed his disin- 
 terestedness and his public spirit by resigning his post 
 in the Cabinet, in order to free his hands for the purpose 
 of promulgating his policy. Little could he have dreamt 
 that the time would come when, after ten years of futile 
 agitation, his supporters would find themselves compcllod 
 to abandon the mainspring of his policy, or, at least, 
 indefinitely to postpone it, while concentrating upon a 
 
 2 
 
THE BIRTH OF A HERESY 
 
 policy of pure protection, to be effected through import 
 duties on manufactured goods, from which the products of 
 farmers would derive no advantage, a policy which he, 
 in the first instance, absolutely disclaimed. The story of 
 the intervening ten years is that of the gradual elimination 
 of the original policy of effective Colonial preference and 
 the fiscal union of the Empire, and the substitution for it 
 of an insular policy of pure protection by means of import 
 duties on foreign manufactures. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to recall the fact that Mr. 
 Balfour, in 1903, when Prime Minister, while agreeing in 
 principle with the policy proposed by his colleague, 
 doubted much the expediency of committing his Govern- 
 ment and the Tory party to what he feared would be 
 resented and repudiated by the labouring classes— the 
 taxation of food. But he connived at, if he did not at 
 first actively support, the policy of his retiring colleague. 
 He seems to have had a strong inclination for a return to 
 Protection. He had for many years advocated a bi- 
 metallic standard of gold and silver, in lieu of the single 
 gold standard — a scheme for the artificial raising and 
 maintenance of prices. After the total collapse and dis- 
 appearance of this most foolish of all conundrums, it was 
 not unnatural that he should turn his hand to another 
 scheme of raising prices by means of protective duties. 
 He got rid of four of his colleagues in the Cabinet who 
 were convinced Free Traders, and so acted as to drive a 
 fifth, the Duke of Devonshire, from his Government. He 
 appointed Mr. Austen Chamberlain as Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, to represent his father and to act as a kind 
 of watch-dog on the Government, in the interest of the 
 Birmingham policy. He bade God speed to the new 
 agitation. 
 
 In spite, however, of this support from the head of 
 the Government, Mr. Chamberlain soon discovered that 
 3 
 
'A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 the policy of Colonial Preference roused no enthusiasm 
 in the country, and that the prospect of food taxes, with 
 their admitted effect in raising the price of food, was in 
 a high degree unpopular, save to farmers and landowners. 
 It was necessary, therefore, to widen and popularise his 
 programme so as to include among its supporters the 
 large class of manufacturers and others who disliked free 
 competition with foreign products, and who hoped, by 
 excluding them, to raise the prices of their own products 
 — a class which had always existed, but which, since the 
 abandonment of Protection by the Tory Party in 1S52, 
 had been held in restraint by its leaders. 
 
 In an evil moment for his fame as a statesman and his- 
 torian, Mr. Chamberlain flung aside all his previous con- 
 victions as a Free Trader, propounded with such force 
 and acumen between 1880 and 1884, when at the head of 
 the Board of Trade. At a series of great meetings at 
 centres of manufacturing industry, commencing with 
 Glasgow, on Oct. 6, 1903, he started on a campaign for 
 a complete reversal of free trade, and for the adoption of 
 a scheme of protective duties on all imports, save raw 
 materials. He expounded this scheme with statements, 
 arguments and prophecies astounding for their inaccuracy 
 and audacity. Looking back at them now with the ex- 
 perience of the course of trade in this country, in the sub- 
 sequent ten years, so opposite to everything which he 
 predicted, and with the knowledge we now have of the 
 efforts of other countries to rid themselves of the incubus 
 of protection, one can only marvel that these speeches 
 produced any effect whatever, even on the credulous people 
 who listened to them. He declared Free Trade to be a 
 failure. He attacked the motives as well as the policy of 
 its founders. He accused them of being personally in- 
 terested in the adoption of a policy with the object of 
 securing cheap labour for their factories. He attributed 
 4 
 
THE BIRTH OF 'A HERESY 
 
 to them positive engagements and promises to the effect 
 that other countries would follow our example. He claimed 
 that as this had not been effected there was only a one- 
 sided free trade. "While admitting that for some years good 
 results had accrued from opening our ports to imports free 
 of duties, he contended that for the last thirty years other 
 countries by their protective policy had strangled our 
 trade. By audacious manipulation of figures, by comparing 
 the figures of the best year of booming trade thirty years 
 ago with a recent lean year, and by ignoring the great 
 fall of prices of 30 to 40 per cent, which had occurred 
 in the interval, he made it appear that our exports had 
 been almost stationary. 
 
 He predicted ruin to our principal industries if Free 
 Trade were maintained. In a well-known and oft-quoted 
 passage, he said : "Agriculture, the greatest of all our in- 
 dustries, has been practically destroyed, the sugar industry 
 has gone, silk has gone, iron is threatened, wool is 
 threatened, cotton will go. At the present time these in- 
 dustries and the working men who depend on them are 
 like sheep in a fold. One by one they allow themselves 
 to be led out to slaughter, and there is no combination, 
 no apparent prevision of what is in store for them." Even 
 the shipping trade, he declared, was falling behind-hand; 
 and foreign countries which had adopted Protection were 
 making greater progress than this country. As he pro- 
 ceeded in his campaign from town to town, he illustrated 
 his theme by referring to the minor industries in which 
 some of his audiences were interested — such as alkali, tin 
 plates, wire, glass, pottery, cycles, watches, jewellery, and 
 even pearl buttons. They were represented as being in 
 a decadent state, strangled by foreign competition. 
 Another most important part of his task was to persuade 
 the labouring classes that his proposed import duties on 
 food would not raise prices, and would not increase the 
 5 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 cost of living. "I do not believe," he said, "that these 
 small taxes will be paid to any large extent by the con- 
 sumer in this country. I believe, on the contrary, they 
 will be paid by the foreigner." Elsewhere he described 
 import duties as "the toll which foreign importers pay for 
 the privilege of trading with us." 
 
 The use of this argument gave an air of insincerity 
 and duplicity to the whole campaign, for it seemed to be 
 incredible that Mr. Chamberlain could really believe in 
 such absurd propositions. He was continually on the horns 
 of a dilemma. While in one part of a speech his efforts 
 were to prove to manufacturers and farmers that their 
 products would be raised in price by the duties which he 
 proposed, in other parts of the same speech he endeavoured 
 to allay the fears of consumers by the assertion that the 
 price of food would not be raised by the proposed import 
 duties. These contentions were, in fact, destructive of one 
 another. Their inconsistency was exposed by the details 
 of his scheme. If it was true that import duties would 
 not raise prices, but would be paid by the foreigner, what 
 possible object could there be in giving preference to 
 Colonial produce, or why exempt raw material from import 
 duties, or why propose that bacon, as the food of the 
 labouring classes, and maize, as the food for cattle, should 
 be imported free of duty ? 
 
 It is necessary to bear in mind this vein of duplicity 
 in the Tariff movement, for it has been a marked feature 
 in every report and pamphlet of the Tariff League, 
 and equally in every one of the innumerable speeches 
 by agents of the League. They have invariably 
 consisted of appeals to employers and workmen in 
 individual industries for support to protective duties, on 
 express or implied promises that prices would be raised, 
 and that profits and employment would be increased at the 
 expense of foreign competitors. 'At the same lime, assur- 
 6 
 
THE BIRTH OF 'A HERESY 
 
 ances were given to the mass of consumers that they would 
 not suffer by the increased price of food, clothing, and 
 other necessaries of life. 
 
 On the conclusion of this fiscal campaign of Mr. Cham- 
 berlain, in the autumn of 1903, the Cobden Club issued a 
 reply to him. It was prepared by a committee of its lead- 
 ing members. It charged Mr. Chamberlain with having 
 in every one of his speeches, and in almost every part of 
 them, misquoted the words and misrepresented the opinions 
 of the greatest past authorities on economic questions, and 
 of the leaders of the Free Trade movement. It showed 
 that the historical references in them were unfounded and 
 untrue, and that they were a travesty of history; that 
 the quotations from Adam Smith, Cobden and Gladstone 
 were unfair and unreliable, in the sense that they were 
 cited without regard to their contexts, so as to carry mean- 
 ings quite different to what were intended by these men. 
 It charged him with having distorted figures and statistics 
 to suit his argument, and with having grouped them in 
 so deceptive and unscientific a manner as to be worthless 
 as a support for any argument. It showed that his illus- 
 trations of alleged decadent industries were, with the rarest 
 exceptions, unfounded or grossly exaggerated; and that 
 his scheme, or, rather, bundle of schemes, was unwork- 
 able as a whole, inconsistent and antagonistic one part 
 with another, and that it would necessarily degenerate into 
 one for pure Protection all round. 
 
 It may be confidently asserted that in the records of 
 political and economic controversy more comprehensive 
 and specific charges of garbling quotations, perverting 
 historical facts, and cooking statistics were never made 
 against a public man by a responsible body of persons, 
 interested from a public point of view only in the question 
 dealt with. 
 
 No reply was ever attempted by Mr. Chamberlain, or 
 Z 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLIXG 
 
 by any supporter of his policy on his behalf, to any one 
 of these charges and statements, and no step was ever 
 taken to vindicate the reputation of the leader of the 
 Tariff movement for accuracy and fairness. 
 
 In one branch of the subject only was the reply of 
 the Cobden Club unavoidably incomplete — that relating 
 to the prophetic warnings and dismal jeremiads of Mr. 
 Chamberlain as to the impending decadence and ruin of 
 the British export trade, if the system of Free Trade was 
 maintained. It has been well said that it is impossible 
 to disprove a prophet, and that the only way of dealing 
 with him is to ask the public to discredit him as a 
 charlatan. The Cobden Club adopted this course, and, 
 in doing so, have been fully justified by the subsequent 
 course of events. The ten years, which have elapsed since 
 the publication of the new gospel of Protection, have 
 afforded abundant and convincing proof that Mr. Cham- 
 berlain was as unfortunate in his predictions of the future, 
 as in his interpretation and manipulation of past facts and 
 figures. The speeches of his campaign of 1903 could not 
 be delivered at the present time, without rousing universal 
 derision, so completely have they been falsified by events 
 which have happened under our eyes in the interval. The 
 Cobden Club has been fully justified in its severest com- 
 ments on this economic charlatan. 
 
 If we were to take the speeches delivered in the 
 campaign of 1903, and strike out of them all the passages 
 which, in the interval, have been proved to be untrue and 
 absurd, and all the predictions the very contrary to which 
 has happened, it would be found how little remains, and 
 how completely the whole foundation of the case ft)r a 
 return to Protection has crumbled away. 
 
 If it be suggested that these strictures on Mr. Cham- 
 berlain's programme and speeches of 1903 are too severe-, 
 in view of the fact, which everyone must regret, that 
 
THE TARIFF REFORM LEAGUE 
 
 he has been incapacitated, since igo6, by illness from 
 taking any active part in public affairs, it must be replied 
 that he still remains the figure head of the movement, 
 still remains a nominal Member of Parliament, and still, 
 from his sick chamber, cheers on his followers to support 
 the remnant which survives of his original scheme. The 
 Tariff movement still owes whatever survives of its vitality 
 to his inspiration and prestige. The speeches of 1903 still 
 remain the main text-book from which the Tariff League 
 draws its arguments. No one since 1903 has presented 
 the case, either for the original scheme, or for what 
 remains of it, in an authorised and intelligible form. It 
 is necessary, therefore, to deal with Mr. Chamberlain as 
 though he were still a living force and leader of the 
 Tariff movement. 
 
 II 
 
 The Tariff Reform League 
 
 Immediately after the autumn campaign of 1903 an 
 Association was formed by Mr. Chamberlain, for which 
 the name of Tariff Reform League was devised, a title 
 which disguised its main object and purport, namely, the 
 complete subversion of the whole policy of Free Trade, 
 and the giving effect to the scheme of protective duties 
 on imported food and manufactures, which had been 
 devised and expounded with so much rhetorical effect by 
 its founder and president. The leading members of the 
 association were Mr. Chaplin, Lord Ridley, Sir Vincent 
 Caillard, Mr. Leverton Harris, and other well-known Pro- 
 tectionists. Very large sums of money were raised for 
 the purpose, and great expenditure was incurred on 
 literature expounding the new gospel, on paid agents for 
 9 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 speaking on its behalf in every part of the country — often 
 in the streets and public-houses — and on holding the sham 
 inquiries hereafter referred to. No information, however, 
 has ever been afforded to the public as to the names of 
 the donors, the amounts of their subscriptions, or 
 the details of the expenditure. The association, by 
 means of its command of money, appears to have soon 
 captured the political organisation of the Tory party, and 
 to have succeeded in making the Tariff scheme a plank in 
 its political programme. 
 
 A little later another and subsidiary organisation was 
 founded, called the Tariff Commission — a parody of a 
 Royal Commission — closely connected with the parent 
 body and with the same secretariat. Mr. Chamberlain 
 gave directions to his nominees, just as the King gives 
 directions to a Royal Commission, to hold inquiries into 
 the condition of the different industries in the country, and 
 to advise as to what was thought necessary for their protec- 
 tion against foreign competition. Eventually the reports 
 on individual industries were to be co-ordinated, and a 
 scientific tariff was to be framed by the whole Commission, 
 so as to be ready at hand, whenever a Government should 
 be in power favourable to this policy. Mr. Hewins, who 
 had been Professor of Economics at King's College, 
 London, was appointed secretary of this commission of 
 inquiry. He was one of the rare professors of political 
 economy who gave support to Mr. Chamberlain's new 
 views as to Protection, and is believed to have in- 
 spired that leader with his oft-repeated argument that 
 import duties would not raise prices, but would be paid 
 by the foreigner. He became thfe leading spirit of both 
 associations. When Mr. Chamberlain was incapacitated 
 by illness, his mantle appears to have fallen upon Mr. 
 Hewins. 
 
 The Commission commenced its work on a grandiose 
 
 10 
 
THE TARIFF REFORM LEAGUE 
 
 and elaborate scale. In the course of the next two years 
 no fewer than fourteen industries were inquired into. Each 
 trade and industry was dealt with separately, without refer- 
 ence to other trades, by large committees consisting, almost 
 without exception, of persons who were committed to Mr. 
 Chamberlain's scheme of Tariff Reform. Witnesses from 
 each trade gave their evidence either orally or in writing. 
 They described its condition, and dilated on the evils of 
 foreign importations, and the benefit which would result 
 from limiting this competition by imposing duties on the 
 imported articles, with the express object of enhancing the 
 prices of the home products. No cross-examination of 
 these witnesses appears to have taken place. No questions 
 were put to them based on the assumption that similar 
 duties would be imposed on imported food, and on all other 
 articles, save only raw materials, and that prices all 
 round would be raised. No inquiry was made of them 
 as to the effect on their labourers of raising the price 
 of their food, and whether this would involve a corre- 
 sponding rise of wages. It was everywhere the assump- 
 tion (rightly enough) that the prices in the particular 
 trades inquired into would be raised by the imposition 
 of duties on the imported article. No representatives of 
 labouring men employed in the trade appear to have been 
 examined. No general evidence was taken as to the whole 
 scheme of import duties. It would be difficult to conceive 
 a method of inquiry more one-sided and farcical. Sum- 
 maries of the evidence thus taken were published, in a 
 great number of cases without the names of the witnesses. 
 The first of these inquiries, that on the iron and steel 
 industries, was completed in 1904. A bulky volume was 
 issued to the public containing summaries of the evidence 
 of a large number of persons connected with these indus- 
 tries. The names of these witnesses, save in a few cases, 
 were withheld. This has been most fortunate for their 
 B II 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLIXG 
 
 reputations, for they cannot now be confronted with the 
 results of the succeeding years, so absolutely contrary to 
 their dismal predictions. With the rarest exceptions, they 
 complained of the effect of foreign competition, and 
 prophesied nothing but decadence and ruin. They were 
 almost unanimous in demanding protective duties to raise 
 prices, and to keep out foreign imports in competition 
 with them. They complained that wages of labourers in 
 Germany and Belgium were everywhere lower, and that 
 the hours of labour were longer than in England. They 
 founded their claim for protective duties mainly on these 
 grounds. The inquiry was limited to the earlier stages 
 of dealing with iron and steel, such as the conversion of 
 iron ore into pig iron, the making of steel bars, ingots, 
 billets, plates, bolts, etc. It did not include industries 
 dealing with iron and steel in the higher stages of manu- 
 facture, such as engineering, machinery, cutlery and 
 ships, to which cheap iron and steel or cheap bars 
 and plates are of vast importance, and all of which 
 would be seriously affected by a rise in the price of 
 these materials. The evidence of the witnesses, who were 
 evidently selected with a view to the affirmation of the 
 policy and scheme of the Tariff League, was taken as 
 conclusive, without any effort to test it. The other side 
 of the question was not heard. 
 
 The report of this committee on iron and steel in- 
 dustries was published in the same volume. It recom- 
 mended a general tariff, varying from 5 per cent, on 
 products of iron and steel, in their earlier stages, to 10 per 
 cent, in the later stages. A lower tariff was recommended 
 in the case of imports from the Colonies — not a total 
 exemption. A yet higher tariff was suggested on all 
 imports from foreign countries, where the duties were 
 high, with the object of enabling negotiation for reduction 
 to the general level of the tariff, but no indicatii)n was 
 
 13 
 
THE TARIFF REFORM LEAGUE 
 
 given as to what rate this higher tariff should be. It is 
 obvious that this higher tariff would necessarily become the 
 general tariff". The scheme, therefore, contained in it the 
 certain prospect of a high protective system. Expectations 
 were held out in the report that inquiries would later be 
 held on the more advanced branches of iron and steel in- 
 dustries. These have not been fulfilled, except in the case 
 of engineering, where a summary of evidence has been 
 issued, but no report has been published. 
 
 We have now the figures of the trade in pig iron and 
 iron and steel manufactures for the years which followed 
 the inquiry by the Tariff Commission up to the year 191 2. 
 They completely negative and falsify all the statements 
 and prophecies of the Commission and the witnesses 
 examined by it. 
 
 The following figures are eloquent as to the progress 
 of our export trade, and show how little fear there is as to 
 competition from other countries : 
 
 EXPORTS. 
 
 Average of 
 Four Years, 
 1901-1904. 
 
 Pig Iron ... tons 955,000 
 
 Average of 
 
 Four Years, 
 
 1909-1912. 
 
 1,207,000 
 
 Percentage 
 of Increase. 
 
 24% 
 
 value ^'2,943,000 
 
 £4,092,000 
 
 43% 
 
 Other Manufactures 
 
 
 
 of Iron ... tons 2,322,000 
 
 3.319.000 
 
 43% 
 
 value /"25,io5,ooo 
 
 ;f38,757,ooo 
 
 55% 
 
 IMPORTS 
 (after deducting Re-exports). 
 
 Average of 
 Four Years, 
 1901-1904. 
 
 Pig Iron ... tons 173,000 
 value ;^683,ooo 
 
 Other Manufactures — 
 
 tons 998,000 
 value ;{"7,ooo,ooo 
 13 
 
 Average of 
 
 Four Years, 
 
 1909-1912. 
 
 167,000 
 
 £727,000 
 
 1,356,000 
 £9,000,000 
 
 Percentage 
 of Increase. 
 
 8% 
 
 30% 
 
'A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 The figures show conclusively that exports have been 
 increasing at a much greater rate than imports. With 
 respect to "dumping," of which so much complaint was 
 made in the report of the Tariff Commission, we can find 
 nothing in the evidence published by the Commission, or 
 in the official trade statistics, up to that time or since, 
 to justify the wild statements of injury to the iron and 
 steel industries. That from time to time consignments 
 of iron and steel have been made from Germany, at 
 less price than in their home market, may be true; but 
 there is nothing to show that this has become a 
 practice, or that large quantities of materials have been 
 forced upon the British markets in this way. No statistics 
 were quoted in the report of the Commission to this 
 effect. 
 
 Nor in the trade returns of the past four years is there 
 anything to show that dumping prevails, or that large 
 quantities of German pig iron or manufactured iron or 
 steel have been dumped on British markets. The figures 
 already quoted for the past four years negative the 
 prophecies of the Tariff Commission that dumping would 
 become a permanent policy, and that it would cause a 
 loss of employment in this country. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Report on the Cotton Industry 
 
 The second report of the Tariff Commission, that on the 
 cotton industry, was issued early in 1905. The evidence 
 which is summarised in it was taken in 1904, and the 
 statistics, on which it was based, related to the trade returns 
 for 1903 and previous years. Unfortunately for the value 
 14 
 
REPORT ON THE COTTON INDUSTRY 
 
 of the report, and the credit of those responsible for it, 
 and of the witnesses who gave evidence, the year 1903 
 was the last of a period of depression, and the year 
 1904 was the first of a cycle of ten years of most remark- 
 able expansion of the cotton industry, during which it 
 increased by leaps and bounds, and when those engaged 
 in it enjoyed a prosperity and realised profits, such as 
 had not been experienced for many years previously. 
 This falsified all the predictions of the Tariff report, 
 and showed that the men who conducted the inquiry were 
 quite incompetent to form an opinion as to the future 
 of the industry. 
 
 The committee, which had the presumption to prophesy 
 as to the future of the cotton trade, was composed wholly 
 of men committed to Mr. Chamberlain's scheme. They 
 evidently entered upon the inquiry with preconceived 
 views, and were interested only in collecting evidence in 
 support of them. They followed the example and methods 
 of Mr. Chamberlain's speeches in 1903. 
 
 By an ingenious arrangement of statistics, by the 
 selection of years for comparison, by excluding all other 
 considerations, such as the change which had been effected 
 in the industry by spinning and manufacturing finer 
 qualities of goods requiring more labour, and the effect 
 on the comparative values of exports of the fall of prices, 
 they persuaded themselves, and tried to persuade others, 
 that the great industry of cotton had made no progress 
 for some years past, and that its prospects for the future 
 were even worse. 
 
 The committee, the report said, "regard the future with 
 anxiety. Although there is at present" (alluding, prob- 
 ably to the year 1904) "a revival of trade, due, in their 
 opinion, to transient causes, the trade as a whole has 
 increased so slightly during the last fifteen years as to 
 be practically stationary." (Par. 66.) 
 IS 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 ".Witnesses are agreed that no considerable expansion 
 of trade with foreign manufacturing countries which have 
 a tariff can, in existing conditions, be looked for, and that 
 the decline which has already commenced must become 
 more marked." (Par. 69.) 
 
 "Trade," they said, "with the Continent of Europe is 
 declining or stationary." 
 
 "With respect to neutral markets generally, witnesses 
 are on the whole agreed that, although the trade of Great 
 Britain is slowly increasing, no considerable expansion 
 can at present be looked for, and that in existing con- 
 ditions the trade will become stationary." (Par. 71.) 
 
 The recommendations of the committee were moderate 
 as compared w^ith those of other committees of the Tariff 
 Cc •'.mission. No duties were proposed "for the present" 
 on imported yarns and grey cotton cloths. They were to 
 be imposed on other cotton manufactures. There were to be 
 two tariffs — a general one and a maximum, the latter was 
 to be imposed in the case of imports from countries putting 
 a high duty on British products, and was to be such as 
 would enable the Government to negotiate with the 
 Governments of such countries. No specific scale of these 
 higher duties was suggested, but it is evident that the 
 maximum tariff would necessarily be a high one, if it 
 were to have any effect for the purpose of negotia- 
 tion, and it would almost certainly become the general 
 tariff. 
 
 The whole of these proposals, equally with all the 
 (evidence and the jeremiads as to the future, have been 
 blown to the winds by the enormous and unprecedented 
 activity and prosperity of the cotton industry since the report 
 was issued. The facts and figures alone are sufficient to 
 dissipate all the malign predictions. The improvement 
 in the year 1904, which the committee admitted, but which 
 they expected to be transient, proved to be the commence- 
 16 
 
REPORT ON THE COTTON INDUSTRY 
 
 ment of the most remarkable and permanent expansion 
 of the industry which has ever been experienced. 
 
 Tlie exports of cotton yarns, which average for the 
 two years 1902-3 ^'7,405,000, rose to ;^i6, 195,000, the 
 average of 1911-12, an increase of 120 per cent. 
 
 The exports of all other cotton manufactures rose in 
 the same years from an average of ;^65,034,ooo, to 
 ;^ 105, 32 1,000, the average of the two years 1911-12, an 
 increase of no less than 60 per cent, in the nine years. 
 
 This great increase was realised even more in the 
 exports to the highly protected countries in Europe 
 than to other countries. To Germany alone, where high 
 duties are imposed on imported cotton goods, the exports 
 of cotton yarn have increased from ;{^ 1,004,000 for the 
 average of two years, 1902 and 1903, to ^4,821,000 for 
 the average of 1910 and 191 1, and the exports of cotton 
 tissues from ^1,286,000 to ;^i, 920,000. 
 
 Compared with the exports, the imports of foreign 
 cotton goods are insignificant. The value of imported 
 cotton yarn in 1912 was only ^540,000, and of cotton 
 tissues ;^2,502,ooo — together about 2 per cent, only of 
 the value of exported cotton goods. 
 
 This immense expansion of exports of cotton manu- 
 factures, far beyond what the most sanguine Free Trader 
 could have ventured to predict in 1904, should be a 
 warning to Tariff-mongers not to apply their quack 
 remedies to it. 
 
 Complete freedom of imports, the low price of every 
 product used in the manufacture of cotton, and in the 
 erection of factories, and the construction of machinery, 
 and of food and clothing for the workers employed in it, 
 are the very essence of the Lancashire cotton trade — the 
 main point in which it has any advantage over all 
 its rivals. 
 
 17 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 IV 
 
 Report on Agriculture 
 
 The third and only other report of the Commission which 
 has been allowed to see the light was that on agriculture. 
 The committee which inquired into it was presided over 
 by Mr. Chaplin, and consisted of twenty-two other agri- 
 culturists equally well known for their ardent support of 
 the Chamberlain policy. The report was issued in 1905 
 in a bulky volume, containing the evidence of very 
 numerous witnesses. With the rarest exceptions they were 
 all of one mind. They breathed nothing but Protection, 
 the necessity for raising prices of food products, and for 
 restricting competition of foreign products. A large pro- 
 portion of the witnesses considered that the proposed 
 import duties under the Chamberlain scheme would be 
 quite insufficient. They thought them so small as to be 
 useless. The general tone of the witnesses showed 
 that the concession of the Chamberlain scheme would 
 only whet their appetites for more. Every argu- 
 ment used for the scheme would apply equally in the 
 future for further demands. It was generally admitted 
 that the proposed duty on corn of 2s. per quarter 
 would have no effect in inducing farmers to increase their 
 arable cultivation by ploughing up the land laid down in 
 grass during the period of agricultural depression of 
 1880-1904. It was agreed that nothing short of a duty 
 of 12S. a quarter would be sufKcient for this purpose. 
 
 It was significant that the witnesses desired Protection 
 equally against Colonial produce as against Foreign pvo- 
 duce. There was a general demand that duties should 
 be imposed on imports from the Colonics, and that if 
 preference were to be given, it should only bo to the 
 extent of one-half of the duty on foreign products. The 
 
REPORT ON AGRICULTURE 
 
 evidence as a whole was based on the belief that import 
 duties on food would raise prices in the interest of the 
 farmers. Not a few, however, seemed to be under the 
 delusion, fostered by Mr. Chamberlain's speeches in 1903, 
 that import duties on food would be paid in part, if not 
 wholly, by the foreigner, and not by the consumer. There 
 was much confusion of mind on the subject. Mr. Balfour's 
 policy, which, it was believed, aimed only at duties on 
 manufactured goods for the purpose of retaliation, and not 
 on imported food, was generally condemned on the ground 
 that it would increase the cost of everything the farmers 
 purchased, such as their clothes, their farm implements, 
 their feeding stuffs and their machinery, while they would 
 not benefit from the increased price of their own products. 
 But the same witnesses often alleged that duties on food 
 would not increase its price to consumers. No attempt 
 appears to have been made to cross-examine these wit- 
 nesses, and to show their inconsistency, or to test the 
 evidence on these and other points. The case of the 
 agricultural labourer was not heard or considered. It was 
 apparently thought that the agricultural interest consisted 
 only of farmers and landowners, and that the labourers 
 had no concern in the question of the levying of duties 
 on their food. No questions appear to have been asked 
 as to whether the wages of labourers would rise in pro- 
 portion to the increased cost of food. 
 
 The purpose of the committee was evidently to collect 
 the evidence of persons with preconceived views in favour of 
 a scheme already, as regards its main features, determined 
 on. There was no element of an impartial and scientific 
 inquiry. A committee thus conducted fulfilled, as was to be 
 expected, the objects of those who called it into existence. 
 It reported in favour of the Chamberlain proposal of 
 duties of 2s. a quarter on corn, of 5 per cent, on meat, 
 of 5 to 10 per cent, on dairy and other agricultural produce, 
 19 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 with a suggestion for yet iiigher duties on special articles. 
 It recommended, however, that the preference to be ac- 
 corded to the Colonies should be one-half only of the 
 duties on foreign produce, and not, as in the Chamberlain 
 scheme, the whole of them. It also reported against 
 the exemption from duties of bacon and maize. It was 
 in favour of a much higher duty on flour than on corn, 
 with the object of encouraging the milling interest ; it 
 advised that the rebate allowed in the case of the duty 
 on corn of 1902, on the re-exported offal of milling, 
 should not be given under the new scheme. 
 
 It was to be expected that the committee, when report- 
 ing in favour of import duties on food, would state what 
 would be the aggregate revenue to be derived from them, 
 and how they would affect prices, and how they would 
 bear upon the different classes of persons engaged in 
 agriculture, and also on the public generally. The com- 
 mittee was silent on these important points. We are not 
 surprised at this. We can well understand the dilemma 
 in which the committee found themselves. If they had 
 expressed the opinion that prices would be raised by the 
 duties they proposed, and that consumers would have to 
 pay more for their food, it would have been necessary to 
 follow this up by considering and reporting whether the 
 wages of agricultural labourers would be raised in pro- 
 portion to the increased cost of their food. If no such 
 rise should take place, it is obvious that the labourer would 
 suffer greatly from the scheme of duties on food. If the 
 committee had come to the conclusion that a rise of wages 
 would take place equal to the increased cost of their food, 
 the scheme would afford little hope of greater profit to 
 farmers. If, again, it should be their opinion that prices 
 would not be raised by the import duties, what would be 
 the attraction of the scheme to farmers and landowners? 
 Under the difficulty of steering between these opposite 
 
REPORT ON AGRICULTURE 
 
 conclusions, the committee evidently decided that their 
 best course was to be silent, at the expense, however, of 
 the honesty of their report. 
 
 Let us endeavour to supply this defect of the report. 
 The proceeds of the duties on food of all kind, as proposed 
 by the committee, may be estimated at ;{,"" 12,000,000 a year. 
 We hold it to be absolutely certain that prices of imported 
 food will be raised by the amount of the duties, and prob- 
 ably by something more, and that no part of the duties 
 on necessaries of life will be paid by the foreign producer 
 or exporter. The importers in this country, the millers 
 and the wholesale dealers, will pay the duties and will 
 raise their charges to the retail dealers by the same amount, 
 and the retail dealers will charge it to the public. 
 
 But, in such case, it is equally certain that the price 
 of home produce will be raised in exactly the same pro- 
 portion. Roughly speaking, the home produce of food 
 of all kinds is about equal in value to the imported food 
 (not including sugar, tea, spirits, etc.). The increased 
 price of food, imported and home grown, of the aggregate 
 estimated value of ^{^400,000, 000, will be about ;^24,ooo,ooo 
 or over. This increased price will be paid by the con- 
 sumer. One-half of this will go to the Exchequer in the 
 shape of import duties, subject to a deduction of about 
 ;^ 1, 250,000 in respect of Colonial produce, which will 
 be a bonus to Colonial producers. The other half, 
 ;^I2, 000,000 a year, will find its way into the pockets 
 of home producers, and ultimately the larger part of 
 it into those of landowners in the shape of increased 
 rent. 
 
 We are justified, therefore, in the conclusion that 
 labouring men would have to face an increase all round on 
 their payments for food. To an agricultural labourer with 
 an average wage all the year round of i6s. a week, of 
 which i2s. a week is spent on food for himself and his 
 
'A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 family, the increase works out at about 50s. a year, or 
 more than three weeks' wages in the course of the year, 
 or nearly is. a week — a very heavy charge on him. 
 
 What is the prospect of his wages being increased 
 in this proportion? All the past experience of this 
 country before 1846, and of other countries in recent times, 
 shows that no increase of wages results to the labourer 
 from protective duties, large or small. 
 
 It must not be assumed that the gain to farmers by 
 the increased price of their produce will be without draw- 
 back. All farmers will have to pay 10 per cent, more for 
 their farm implements, machinery and feeding stuffs, for 
 their clothing and all their other wants. Dairy farmers, 
 who devote themselves to the supply of milk, will derive 
 no benefit from the proposed duties, as there is practically 
 no importation of milk. They will have to pay more for 
 their feeding stuffs, a most important item in their trade, 
 and for all else which they have to buy. 
 
 These are matters which should have been inquired 
 into by the Tariff Committee on Agriculture before recom- 
 mending such a scheme. Their failure to do so is but 
 another proof of the futile character of their inquiry, and 
 of the grave defects of their report. 
 
 The witnesses before this committee, and the committee 
 in their report, were filled with alarm for the future of 
 British agriculture. They dilated on its past losses. They 
 saw no hope for the future. They gave full support to 
 the dismal jeremiads of their patron saint, Mr. Chamber- 
 lain. It was undoubtedly the fact that farmers and land- 
 owners passed through a period of grave depression, 
 commencing about the year 1878, when prices of agricul- 
 tural produce, and especially of corn, began to fall, and 
 when profits of farmers were largely reduced. A large 
 acreage of arable land was laid down in grass. Rents 
 were largely reduced. There was a great reduction in the 
 
 23 
 
REPORT ON AGRICULTURE 
 
 number of agricultural labourers, mainly caused by the 
 greater use of machinery. The depression, however, was 
 very unequally felt. Farmers in the pastoral districts of 
 the United Kingdom suffered much less than those in the 
 arable districts, for the prices of meat and of dairy produce 
 fell much less than those of corn. Wages of labourers did 
 not fall in proportion to prices, and the farmers could not 
 recoup themselves for the lower prices of their products 
 by lowering wages. They were compelled, therefore, to 
 economise labour in every possible way. 
 
 But of late years, and since the report of the Tariff 
 Committee we are referring to, there has been a very great 
 improvement in the position of agriculture. Prices have 
 risen owing to natural causes, and without the artificial 
 incentive of protective duties. Farmers have effected 
 further economies in labour by the greater use of 
 machinery. It is universally admitted that for the last 
 six or eight years the average farmer Has been doing well, 
 and that many of them have made large profits. The 
 best test of this is that there is no longer any difficulty 
 in letting farms. For every vacant farm there are very 
 numerous competitors. Rents are on the rise again. When 
 large landed properties are for sale, it is found advan- 
 tageous to put them up for auction by separate farms, 
 and the tenants have in large numbers of late become 
 purchasers of their farms. This indicates that they have 
 made good profits of late years and have money in hand. 
 So great is the demand for land on the part of farmers that 
 County Councils find great difficulty in acquiring land, 
 by purchase or hire, for the purpose of giving effect to 
 the intentions of Parliament by creating a class of small 
 owners or occupiers of land. The depression of agricul- 
 ture has passed away. The report of the Tariff Commit- 
 tee is dead, and no one can now read it or wade through 
 the evidence taken by the committee without being pro- 
 23 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLIXG 
 
 voked to scorn and contempt, and without being amazed 
 at the waste of human mind and labour in the production 
 of such a worthless result. 
 
 Other Inquiries 
 
 The report on agriculture was the last of three reports 
 issued by the Tariff Commission. Inquiries, however, 
 were held on eleven other industries — on the woollen, 
 flax, hemp, hosiery, lace and carpet industries — in 1904. 
 In the following year, 1905, summaries of the evidence 
 taken in these inquiries w^ere issued by the Tariff Com- 
 mission in seven bulky volumes. It was stated in the 
 prefaces to these volumes that the reports of the Tariff 
 Commission on these industries were nearly ready, and 
 would soon be issued. In 1907 summaries of evidence 
 taken by the Tariff Commission were issued as to 
 three other industries — pottery, glass, and sugar and 
 confectionery — and in 1909 a summary of evidence taken 
 as to the engineering industry w^as published. In these 
 volumes, again, it was advertised that the reports on the 
 woollen and other textile industries, of which summaries 
 only had been issued, were nearly ready and would soon 
 ht published. But none of these reports have been issued 
 to tlie public. 
 
 It is not stated in these summaries of evidence as to 
 these eleven industries by whom the evidence was taken or 
 when it was taken. It appears, however, from the con- 
 t<'xts that the evidence was, for the most j)art, taken in 
 1904, and in part, perhaps, in H)()5, but nut ]at<T. No 
 explanation was given of the long delay in the j)ublica- 
 24 
 
OTHER INQUIRIES 
 
 tion of the summaries of evidence as to the pottery, glass 
 and sugar industries, where three years were allowed to 
 elapse, or in the engineering industry, where five years 
 elapsed between the taking of the evidence and the publi- 
 cation of the summaries of it; nor has any justification 
 ever been given as to the non-publication of the reports 
 or conclusions of the Tariff Commission. The summaries 
 of evidence show that the inquiries were conducted in the 
 same one-sided, unsatisfactory manner as in the case of 
 the three industries where reports were issued, and which 
 have already been adverted to. They were all tarred with 
 the same brush. None of them had the rudiments of 
 independent or scientific procedure. They were mere 
 ex-parte inquiries, confined in each case to the particular 
 industry dealt with, conducted by men whose minds were 
 fully made up in favour of the great scheme of Mr. 
 Chamberlain. There was no pretence of hearing the 
 other side of the question. The witnesses were equally 
 of one mind as those who held the inquiry, and were 
 evidently selected on that account. No single representa- 
 tive of labour was examined as to the effect of the scheme, 
 as a whole, on the labourers. It was obviously the inten- 
 tion of the Commission to restrict their inquiry to each 
 industry dealt with, and carefully to exclude consideration 
 of the effect of the whole policy on all other in- 
 dustries. In this they were wise in their generation. 
 Mr. Cobden used to say that he found by experience that 
 almost everyone engaged in a business was a Protec- 
 tionist, so far as his own particular industry was con- 
 cerned. A plausible and specious case could be made out 
 for any single trade that by imposing an import duty on 
 foreign products competing with it, prices would be raised, 
 competition reduced, and employment increased; and, if 
 protective duties could be limited to that single trade, 
 those concerned in it would be benefited. No one doubts, 
 25 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 for instance, that a duty on imported corn alone, equal to 
 that now imposed in Germany, of about 12s. per quarter, 
 if imposed singly and unaccompanied by duties on other 
 imports, would benefit farmers in this country, would give 
 an inducement to increased cultivation of corn, would 
 permanently add to the rent of landowners, and would 
 increase employment in rural districts by the extent to 
 which land laid down in grass should again be broken up 
 for arable cultivation; no one doubts that a duty of 10 per 
 cent, on iron and steel bars and rails would benefit the 
 manufacturers of these articles by raising prices, checking 
 foreign imports, and lessening competition. The general 
 public, however, would have to pay for these benefits to 
 individual industries in the increased prices of the articles 
 produced. When the same measure is extended to all in- 
 dustries, when duties are raised on all imports, as is certain 
 to follow, the scheme becomes one for raising prices all 
 round, where the benefit to the particular industry is lost 
 in the increased price which the farmers, or manufacturers, 
 have to pay for all their other requirements, and where the 
 workmen in that trade and in all other trades will certainly 
 suffer from enhanced prices of food and all necessaries of 
 life, without any prospect of their wages being increased in 
 the same proportion. The manufacturers, who gave evidence 
 before the committees of the Tariff Commission, were 
 generally agreed that in the protected countries in Europe, 
 and especially in Germany, the wages of labourers were 
 very distinctly lower, and the hours of work much longer, 
 than in the case of the labourers in the same indus- 
 tries in England. This was the main ground on which 
 they based their demand for protective duties. They 
 asked that they might be put on a level with their 
 rivals abroad as regards the cost of labour, ll was 
 assumed thai wages would not rise in prt)p(»rii«)n lo the 
 increased cost of food and other necessaries of lift'. It 
 26 
 
OTHER INQUIRIES 
 
 did not seem to have occurred to any of them that the 
 protective duties in such a country as Germany were the 
 direct cause of low wages and of enhanced cost of living 
 to labourers. 
 
 An inquiry, therefore, restricted to a particular trade, 
 and which excluded the question: "What will be the 
 effect of the scheme, as a whole, on that trade and on all 
 other trades, and on the labourers employed in them, and 
 on the public generally ? " was necessarily a sham and a 
 fraud. This, in effect, was what these inquiries by the 
 Tariff Commission have been. 
 
 The reports and summaries of evidence which have 
 been issued by the Tariff Commission have consisted of 
 two distinct parts — the one dealing with the past of the 
 various industries inquired into. By an ingenious selec- 
 tion of years and periods for comparison, following the 
 example of Mr. Chamberlain in his speeches in 1903, by 
 disregarding altogether the effect of the great fall in prices 
 from 1880 to 1893, in concealing the real progress in 
 volume of trade, and by taking the w^orst possible view 
 of existing industries, a pessimistic conclusion was arrived 
 at as to progress in past years and as to the existing con- 
 dition of these industries. 
 
 This naturally led on to the other part, which consisted 
 of dismal jeremiads as to the future prospects of these 
 industries, and the confident expression of opinion that 
 unless foreign competition could be stemmed by the impo- 
 sition of protective tariffs, the industries would be ruined. 
 Unfortunately for these prophets of decadence, the years 
 which immediately followed the issue of the reports, and 
 the taking of evidence on which the summaries were based, 
 completely nullified all these predictions. Commencing 
 with 1904, and continuing up to 1912, there has been an 
 expansion of trade in almost every branch of industry 
 such as has never been experienced in past years — a 
 C 27 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 progress beyond what the most ardent Free Trader would 
 have ventured to predict eight years ago. 
 
 This seems to be the real explanation of the fact 
 that the promised reports, in respect of which the sum- 
 maries of evidence w-ere issued, have never been allowed 
 to see the light. Some delay necessarily occurred in deal- 
 ing with such a number of inquiries, and trade improved 
 to such an extent, in the interval, that it was thought 
 better not to issue the reports, but to wait in hope for a 
 reaction, and for a period of bad trade. But the reaction 
 did not occur and no period of bad trade was experienced. 
 In vain did the Tariflf-mongers pray for bad times. Bad 
 trade did not come. The very reverse occurred. It was 
 obviously impossible to frame reports upon evidence com- 
 pletely nullified and made absurd and ridiculous by events 
 so contrary to their expectations and predictions. The 
 reports were consequently still further delayed. 
 
 In 1910, the Cobden Club, in "Tariff IMakers," sub- 
 jected these sham inquiries of the Tariff Commission to a 
 scathing criticism. It expressed the confident opinion that 
 the promised reports would never be produced, and that 
 the Commission was practically defunct. No reply was 
 ever attempted, save that in September, 1910, Mr. Hevvins 
 disclaimed in the Press the suggestion that these reports 
 were purposely withheld from the public, and that the 
 Tariff Commission was practically defunct. But in 
 November of the same year the coup dc grace was 
 given to the Commission. It was obvious that the 
 reports could never be published. A correspondence was 
 accordingly sent to the papers in which Mr. Chamber- 
 lain, writing to Mr. Hewins, the Secretary of the Com- 
 mission, said that "he could not sufficiently thank the 
 Tariff Commission for its work. They had produced a 
 seri<\s of reports of which they had reason to be proud," 
 and that, "when a Government pledged to Tariff Reform 
 28 
 
OTHER INQUIRIES 
 
 should be returned to power, there could be no doubt that 
 the reports would be of the greatest value in forming a 
 tariff." The letter then proceeded to treat the work of the 
 Commission as completed, and requested them to direct 
 their attention in the future to the question of "Preference." 
 The letter spoke of a series of reports, oblivious of the 
 fact that reports on only three industries had been issued, 
 and that in the eleven other industries, where inquiries 
 had been made, the promised reports, which four years 
 previously had been announced as nearly ready for publi- 
 cation, were withheld and suppressed. In view of the 
 regrettable state of Mr. Chamberlain's health, it is 
 impossible to suppose that he waded through these fourteen 
 volumes of evidence so as to form any opinion of their 
 value. It is more reasonable to suppose that the terms of 
 the letter to the Tariff Commission were suggested to him 
 by Mr. Hewins, who was anxious to find an escape from 
 an impossible and humiliating position by winding up 
 the Commission, with the least possible discredit, under 
 the cover of a valedictory eulogy from its founder. How- 
 ever that may be, the Commission came to an end. The 
 promised reports will never be produced, and the final 
 report of the Commission, co-ordinating the reports of 
 its committees and recommending a complete tariff, will 
 never be issued. The eleven summaries of evidence 
 taken at as many separate inquiries have been already 
 buried deep in oblivion. They are completely obsolete. 
 Reports on them could not possibly be drawn up, and 
 the evidence summarised in the case of the eleven 
 industries could not now be given in the same sense, 
 any more than could Mr. Chamberlain's speeches of 
 1903 be now delivered. The Tariff prophets have been 
 exposed. They cannot again venture to try their hands 
 at reading the future. 
 
 It is to be noted that the three reports of the Tariff 
 29 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 Commission and most of the summaries of evidence in 
 the woollen industries were issued by the Tariff Commis- 
 sion in 1905, before the General Election of that year, at 
 a time when the tide of prosperous export trade had only 
 recently begun, and when the predictions of the Tariff 
 Commission and its selected witnesses had not been com- 
 pletely nullified, and when the credulous might still think 
 that there was some reason to believe that they would be 
 verified. Yet, although the General Election turned 
 largely on Tariff Reform, these reports and the evidence 
 taken by the Commission produced no effect whatever even 
 in the districts whose manufactures were largely concerned 
 in them. 
 
 Before concluding our criticisms of the sham inquiries 
 by the Tariff Commission, we think it well to give the 
 figures showing the progress of the various industries 
 in respect of which summaries only of the evidence have 
 been published by the Commission, without any reports or 
 recommendations. The figures show at a glance how 
 great has been the expansion of the export trade during 
 the last nine years, as compared with the imports of 
 the same articles. The aggregate exports have increased 
 by 50 per cent., while the imports have increased by 
 only 4 per cent. We can well understand that, as these 
 results were realised, it became necessary to suppress 
 the reports founded on evidence so completely negatived 
 by subsequent experience. 
 
 Among the most remarkable of the expansions of the 
 last few years has been that of the woollen industry 
 in all its branches. It is that in which in past times 
 there has been the keenest competition with France, 
 Germany, and Belgium. The exports of these industries 
 have increased in the eight years by 60 per cent., while 
 the imports have been stationary. While there has been 
 this phenomenal increase in the exports of British woollen 
 30 
 
TARIFF REFORM A PARTY PLANK 
 
 and worsted goods, the exports from France have fallen 
 in the same period from ;^8, 724,000 to ;^7, 702,000, and 
 those of Germany have increased from ^12,000,000 to 
 ;^ 1 2,450,000, or by less than 4 per cent. Yet this was an 
 industry which, in 1903, Mr. Chamberlain described as 
 threatened with serious reverses, and for which the wit- 
 nesses before the Tariff Commission demanded protection 
 as against its foreign rivals ! 
 
 • EXPORTS. IMPORTS. 
 
 A„„,„^=„f .,=^..0 Average of 2 years after deduct. 
 
 Average of 2 years. -^^ ^^,^^1 ^^ re-ex ports. 
 
 1903.4 1911-12. 1903-4. 1911-12. 
 
 £ £ £ £ 
 
 Woollen Tissues 4,201,000 8,572,000 ... 2,341,000 2,950,000 
 
 Do. Hosiery 999,000 1,841,000 .... 307,000 428,000 
 
 Carpets and Rugs 1,448,000 1,656,000 ... 515,000 322,000 
 
 Tissues and higher Manu-] 
 
 factures of Wool other [ 15,212,000 22,177,000 ... 7,312,000 4,908,000 
 
 than above j 
 
 Linen Yarn 869,000 1,244,000 ... 926,000 1,343,000 
 
 Do. Manufactures ... 5,637,000 6,984,000 ... 678,000 945,000 
 
 Jute Yarn 506,000 781,000 ... 76,000 48,000 
 
 Do. Manufictures ... 2,087,000 2,467,000 ... 309,000 904,000 
 
 Machinery 20,552,000 32,060,000 ... 3,474,000 5,100,000 
 
 Glass ... .. ... 1,054,000 1,751,000 ... 3,423,000 3,096,000 
 
 Porcelain and Earthenware 2,140,000 3,090,000 ... 837,000 884,000 
 
 54,705,000 82,623,000 ... 20,198,000 20,928,000 
 
 * Owing to a change in the Board of Trade's method of classification it is impossible to 
 compare the figures of Confectionery for 1903 and 1904 with those of 1911 and 1912. There has 
 however, been a much larger expansion in the export than in the import trade. 
 
 VI 
 
 Tariff Reform a Party Plank 
 
 The impudent attempt to impose on the working classes 
 the belief that import duties on food would not raise its 
 price to consumers entirely failed to produce any effect 
 upon the great body of electors in the General Election, 
 at the commencement of 1906. There can be no doubt 
 that the fear of food taxes contributed greatly to the defeat 
 of the Unionist party. Even without this aggravating 
 issue, defeat would have been certain, for the country was 
 thoroughly weary of the long reign of a Tory Government. 
 31 
 
'A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 But, with food taxes and protective duties superadded, 
 there resuhed a disaster almost without parallel in past 
 electoral experience. The Unionist party, however, which 
 emerged from the election was, with rare exceptions, 
 committed to the policy of the Tariff League. Of 154 
 Members returned to the next Parliament, only 16 were 
 pronounced Free Traders. 
 
 There followed immediately after the General Election 
 another misfortune to the Tariff League, the disablement 
 of Mr. Chamberlain by serious illness. This led to the 
 withdrawal from active political work of the leader who 
 had inaugurated the movement, and who alone could give 
 a defence of his scheme in a specious and attractive form 
 on a public platform. 
 
 Undaunted, however, by their memorable defeat in 
 1906, and by the loss of their leader, the Tariff-mongers 
 set to work, after the election, with renewed energy to 
 obtain control of the organisation of the Unionist party. 
 From that time to the present this seems to have been the 
 main object of their efforts. Their ropes were doubtless 
 based on the expectation that other issues would arise 
 which might turn the political scale against the Liberal 
 party, and that Tariff Reform, if adopted as a plank of 
 the Unionist party, would have the benefit of them and 
 of a general reaction, after a few years of a Liberal 
 Government. 
 
 It was also confidently hoped that two successive bad 
 years of trade would, before long, occur, which might 
 have the effect of making the electorate more disposed to 
 try the quack remedy of Protection. Whatever the causes 
 at work, there can be no doubt that in the years which 
 followed the election of 1906 the Unionist party became 
 more and more idenlilied with the Tariff League. The 
 latter succeeded in getting complete control of tho party 
 organisation of tlu* fornu-r. It was able to compt-l the 
 32 
 
TARIFF REFORM A PARTY PLANK 
 
 selection of candidates for Parliamentary election pledged 
 to its views, and to exclude those who were suspected of 
 any leaning to Free Trade. As a result, the Unionist 
 leaders became more pronounced in their views on the 
 Tariff question. 
 
 Thus, on February 14th, 1906, within a few days of 
 the close of the General Election, Mr. Balfour publicly 
 affirmed that "fiscal reform was and must remain the 
 first constructive policy of the Unionist party." He 
 favoured, he said, a moderate general tariff. "A small 
 duty on foreign corn," he thought, "was not in principle 
 objectionable, and should be adopted, if shown to be neces- 
 sary." This was the nearest approach, we believe, which 
 Mr. Balfour had as yet made to a recommendation of food 
 taxes. It was not very enthusiastic, and the words, "if 
 shown to be necessary," afforded the means of escape in 
 the future. Such as it was, it was accepted by Mr. Cham- 
 berlain. "I cordially welcome," he said, "Mr. Balfour's 
 proposal. I entirely agree. I gladly accept." 
 
 Under the influence of this patronage in high quarters, 
 and by generous support of money, the prospects of the 
 Tariff-mongers somewhat improved in 1907 and 1908. In 
 the last of these years their hopes were greatly excited by 
 a temporary depression of trade, caused in great part by a 
 monetary crisis in the United States, and in part also by 
 famine and bad harvests in India. There was also expec- 
 tation that the greater expenditure of the Government, 
 especially in the direction of Old Age Pensions, would 
 necessitate an increase of taxes, and a resort, therefore, to 
 taxes on imports. 
 
 A formula was devised which it was hoped would rope 
 in to the support of the Tariff scheme many doubting and 
 even hostile outsiders : " It was necessary to widen the 
 area of taxation." Lord St. Aldwyn, who was reckoned a 
 staunch Free Trader, lent his authority to this formula. 
 33 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 "The repugnance to small duties on corn, meat and dairy 
 produce," he believed, "was breaking down." 
 
 Mr. Balfour also, about this time, began to profess 
 something like enthusiasm for the Tariff scheme. On 
 October 7th, 1909, he said: "I am a professed believer 
 in what fiscal reform can do." On November 20th he 
 pledged himself and his party to fiscal reform. But in 
 none of his utterances did he define what he meant by 
 fiscal reform, and he evidently avoided committing him- 
 self absolutely to food taxes. 
 
 In 1909, Mr. Lloyd George produced his great Budget, 
 by which he provided revenue for the purpose of Old 
 Age Pensions, and for great additional expenditure on 
 the Navy, by increasing direct taxation in the shape of 
 income-tax and super-tax, and imposing a tax on un- 
 developed land, without resort to new indirect taxes 
 in the shape of import duties of any kind. This was a 
 most cruel blow to the Tariff-mongers. They did their 
 utmost to oppose and reject the Budget, not so much from 
 sympathy with the classes who would suffer from it, as 
 from the belief that the only alternative to it was a scheme 
 of import duties on foreign food and manufactures. 
 Beaten in the House of Commons, they turned their hopes 
 to the House of Lords, regardless of the long-established 
 principle that this body had no concern in financial 
 measures. They invited the Peers to reject the Budget 
 and to force a General Election. From his sick chamber 
 Mr. Chamberlain wrote : "I hope the House of Lords will 
 see their way to force a General Election." Mr. Balfour 
 also gave a signal to the Peers to adopt this cx)urse. 
 The Peers were only loo ready to follow the course, 
 against the advice of some of the wisest and most experi- 
 enced of their members. In so doing they signed their own 
 death warrant. A General Election followed, early in iqio. 
 
 In the course of this election campaign Mr. Balfour 
 34 
 
TARIFF REFORM A PARTY PLANK 
 
 again increased his enthusiasm for Tariff Reform. On 
 January 5th, 1910, he said: "In every country where 
 Tariff Reform has been applied, it has been followed by 
 increases both in the home trade and the export trade. 
 In other words, you make the country a greater produc- 
 tive instrument. You increase the total of the income 
 there is to distribute. Tariff Reform, therefore, w^ould 
 increase and increase greatly employment for the working 
 classes." There was a semblance of scientific and economic 
 treatment of the question in this astounding paradox, but it 
 would not stand the test of cross-examination. There was 
 no reference in it to food taxes. 
 
 This and many other similar exhortations failed to 
 convince the electors. The depression of 1908 had passed 
 away. It proved to be a mere temporary disturbance. 
 Trade w-as again increasing by leaps and bounds. No 
 case could be made against Free Trade. There was a 
 widespread fear of food taxes on the part of labourers. 
 The General Election, which took place early in 19 10, 
 proved to be fatal to the hopes of Tariff Reformers. A 
 majority of Liberals was again returned, not so great, 
 indeed, as in 1906, but more than sufficient to secure to 
 the Government a stable position. It was an emphatic 
 verdict against protective duties on food. 
 
 The action of the House of Lords, in rejecting the 
 Budget of 1909, and forcing a General Election, raised a 
 great constitutional question, which could only be settled 
 by limiting for the future the powers of that House. They 
 endeavoured to ward off the attack by a scheme of self- 
 reform. It is unnecessary to refer to this fantastic scheme, 
 except so far as it embodied for the first time a proposal 
 to submit questions of grave importance, on which the 
 two Houses should differ, to the whole electorate. It was 
 proposed and carried by their Lordships: "That if the 
 difference between the two Houses relates to a matter of 
 35 
 
'A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLIXG 
 
 gravity, and has not been adequately submitted for the 
 judgment of the people, it should be submitted to the 
 people by referendum." 
 
 It will be seen that this proposal for a referendum had, 
 later, a most important bearing on the fate of Tariff 
 Reform. The scheme was in the first instance suggested 
 by the Tariff League. Its leaders in the House of Lords 
 supported it. It passed the House of Lords without 
 opposition (the Government and its supporters abstain- 
 ing from taking part in the discussion). Mr. Balfour 
 gave it his benediction. He said that it completely 
 settled the question. Meanwhile, an attempt was made 
 by the leaders of the two parties to come to an agreement 
 as to the relations of the two Houses, but in vain. Parlia- 
 ment was dissolved again in December, 1910. 
 
 In his speeches in the campaign preceding this third 
 election, Mr. Balfour again waxed enthusiastic in favour 
 of Tariff Reform. "It will not," he said, "increase the 
 price of living to the working classes. It is ludicrous to 
 suppose that the price of bread will be increased by any 
 appreciable amount." (November i8th.) 
 
 And again, at Nottingham, he said: "Granting, for 
 the sake of argument, that the price of bread is increased 
 • — it shall not increase the cost of living to the working 
 man." He pledged the party which, for the time being, 
 he represented, that, "no matter how much the duty on 
 corn may increase the price of bread, no working man 
 shall suffer thereby." This pronouncement met with the 
 approval of the disabled sage of Highbury. He wired 
 to Mr. Balfour: "I need not assure you that I am in the 
 most cordial and complete agreement with yt)u." 
 
 These assurances, however, did not produce much 
 
 effect. It was found difficult by the Unionist candidates 
 
 to make the electors understantl that duties on imported 
 
 food would not raise its price. Tluro were cross currents 
 
 36 
 
TARIFF REFORM A PARTY PLANK 
 
 in the party. There were men of great influence in it 
 who knew that it was impossible to win the pending 
 General Election, or, in fact, any future election, if food 
 taxes were to be insisted on. Mr. Balfour must have had 
 misgivings on the subject. He had always been ready 
 with devices for evading or postponing the issue of food 
 taxes. He now availed himself of the scheme of the 
 referendum as proposed by the House of Lords. 
 
 At a great meeting at the Albert Hall, on Novem- 
 ber 29th, 1910, just before the General Election, he 
 announced the policy of his party. "The Government," 
 he said, "have asked me whether I favour the referendum. 
 They think they have put me into a hole ; but they have 
 not. I frankly say without question Tariff Reform is a 
 great change. I admit that this election cannot be 
 described as turning upon Tariff Reform. I have not the 
 least objection to submit the principles of Tariff Reform 
 to a referendum." 
 
 The announcement was received by the great audience 
 with overwhelming enthusiasm. "This has won us the 
 election," was shouted from all parts of the hall, and was 
 echoed by the Tory Press. The difificulty of food taxes, 
 it was believed, had been got over. The immediate elec- 
 tion would turn on other questions. Tariff Reform was 
 deferred, and would be submitted eventually to the 
 popular vote. 
 
 There were not wanting members of the Unionist party 
 who disapproved of this course. They regarded it as a 
 device of Mr. Balfour to postpone food taxes indefinitely. 
 There was, however, no split in the party. The General 
 Election was undoubtedly fought on the understanding, so 
 far as the Unionist party was concerned, that the scheme 
 of Tariff Reform, when finally settled, would be submitted to 
 a referendum. Mr. Chamberlain, however, did not commit 
 himself to it. He continued to maintain the cause of Tariff 
 37 
 
'A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 Reform. In a series of messages from Highbury he 
 commended his policy to different parts of the country 
 without ever mentioning the referendum. To Wales he 
 wrote : "No part of the United Kingdom has more to gain 
 from Tariff Reform than Wales." To Ireland he wrote 
 in the same terms. To the Potteries a similar message 
 was sent ; and to the East of London he affirmed that its 
 people were more in need of Tariff Reform than any 
 others. These efforts were in vain. In spite of the attempt 
 on the part of the Unionist leaders to disentangle the 
 issues before the election by the relegation of Tariff 
 Reform to a future referendum, the constituencies again 
 returned a Liberal majority to the new Parliament in about 
 the same proportion as in the previous one. The majority 
 was pledged to carry the Parliament Bill, and to deprive 
 the House of Lords of its power to "veto Liberal legis- 
 lation. It was vehemently opposed to the Tariff scheme 
 in all its bearings. 
 
 VII 
 
 The "Volte-face" of 1913 
 
 The interior history of the Unionist party from the second 
 General Election of 1910 till the retirement of Mr. Balfour, 
 in November, 191 1, is somewhat obscure. There is reason, 
 however, to believe that from an early date after the 
 General Election the great majority of the party deter- 
 mined to throw overboard the referendum, which had 
 failed to give them victory, and which might jeopardise 
 Tariff Reform, if they succeeded in a future election. 
 The adoption of this policy by the party necessarily 
 involved the resignation of Mr. Balfour, who had so fully 
 committed himself to the referendum. He was also 
 38 
 
THE "VOLTt-FACE" OF 1913 
 
 suspected of being very lukewarm in his advocacy of 
 Tariff Reform. It was tliought necessary to find a more 
 zealous and fighting leader. 
 
 Mr. Balfour, rightly interpreting the wishes of the 
 party, most wisely decided to give up his thankless 
 position of leader. On the same day that he an- 
 nounced his resignation, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, at a 
 meeting at the White City, in London, conspicuously 
 threw overboard the referendum. "Tariff Reform," he 
 asserted, "is now part and parcel of Conservatism, 
 without need of further mandate, sanction or appro- 
 bation. The moment the Unionist party are returned 
 to power, they will set about converting their Tariff 
 Reform propaganda, their principles of Imperial Pre- 
 ference and of fair and equal treatment for their own 
 people, into a statutory form." This was a strong bid 
 for the leadership, which he must have known was to be 
 vacated by the resignation of Mr. Balfour. The Unionist 
 party, however, did not respond. It chose a comparatively 
 unknown man, Mr. Bonar Law, as its leader. This states- 
 man had not been behind Mr. Austen Chamberlain in 
 his vigorous enthusiasm for Tariff Reform. He had 
 dubbed it as the greatest of all social reforms. Our system 
 of Free Trade, he had declared, was the worst of all. "Two 
 bad winters would assist the country to a better mind." 
 He had expressed agreement with Mr. Chamberlain, in 
 1909, that improved trade could not be attained without 
 a tax on food. "Tariff Reform," he had more lately 
 affirmed, "is the great item in the constructive programme 
 of the Unionist party, and I share in the view expressed 
 at the outset by Mr. Chamberlain that it is a national 
 and Imperial question which far transcends in importance 
 any party issue." He also commended himself to the party 
 as a leader who would not be afraid to use strong language. 
 It was thought by many that strong language meant strong 
 39 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 determination. But the sequel showed that this was not 
 so. Possibly there were those in the Unionist party who 
 backed his candidature, knowing that he was as ready and 
 willing to compromise as Mr. Balfour, and as little to be 
 trusted on Tariff Reform. Certain it is that he very soon 
 began to show the white feather. 
 
 On December 13th, Mr. Austen Chamberlain, at 
 Glasgow, apparently with the authority of the leader, Mr. 
 Bonar Law, spoke in very definite terms of the details of 
 the intended tariff. 
 
 "We propose," he said, "to put on foreign wheat a 
 duty of 2S. per quarter, on other foodstuffs 5 per cent., 
 with such abatements or total exemption in favour of 
 Colonial produce as may seem to be desirable. On manu- 
 factured goods an average of 10 per cent, is quite as high 
 as we need to go." He repeated this again at Carlisle. 
 
 But less than a week later, Mr. Bonar Law, while 
 asserting in the strongest terms his ardour for Tariff 
 Reform, made a most important retrograde step. 
 
 "For some years," he said, "we have kept the flag 
 flying, and, if there is any sincerity in political life, this 
 is not the time, and, at all events, I am not the man to 
 haul down the flag." But later in the same speech he 
 commenced the operation which he so indignantly repu- 
 diated. He explained that, "on taking office, the party 
 which he led would call a conference of the Dominions, 
 and only upon the request of them would the Government 
 impose food taxes, and not till then." In other words, 
 the responsibility of deciding whether food taxes were to 
 be levied or not in this country was to be imposed on 
 the Dominion Governments and Parliaments. 
 
 A more astounding proposal was never made by a 
 
 political leader in this country. It was at once, without 
 
 hesitation or delay, repudiated by Canadian statesmen. 
 
 They declined the task of deciding what taxation the 
 
 40 
 
THE "VOLTi-FACE" OF 1913 
 
 parent country should bear. This was a deathblow 
 to the immature proposal. Tariff Reform, however, 
 recovered for a time. Its prospects improved, and, 
 apparently, Mr. Bonar Law was forgiven his glaring 
 indiscretion. 
 
 In the middle of November, 1912, a meeting was held 
 at the Albert Hall of the Unionist delegates from every 
 part of the country. Its object was to affirm and approve 
 the fusion of the Tory party and Liberal Unionists, to 
 commit the united party to Tariff Reform and Imperial 
 Preference, and to throw over completely the hated scheme 
 of a referendum. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne announced at this meeting that the 
 referendum was to be dropped by the party. " It would be 
 unreasonable," he said, "that Tariff Reformers should 
 come into office hampered by an engagement of that kind. 
 ... If we win, as I believe we shall, we must come in 
 free to raise taxation." 
 
 Air. Bonar Law, who followed, met with a great 
 ovation. "Tariff Reform," he said, "is our first construc- 
 tive plank. We must raise revenue for social reform. 
 Food taxes will be necessary for the purpose. We shall 
 make the burden on the working classes smaller, and not 
 larger." 
 
 The referendum was repudiated by the unanimous vote 
 of the immense assembly of delegates amid the wildest 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 At the close of 1912 it was stated, on the authority of 
 Mr. F. E. Smith, a newly promoted luminary and leader 
 of the Unionist party, that Tariff Reform, in its full 
 sense, was the master-key of the Unionist activities. 
 There appeared to be unanimity in favour of food taxes. 
 Yet, within six weeks of the Albert Hall meeting, a 
 revolt against them arose in the interior of the Union- 
 ist party. The Lancashire Tories, led by Lord Derby, 
 41 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 refused to be bound to a policy of food taxes. The 
 experience of a by-election at Bolton made it certain that 
 the party could not win elections in Lancashire and 
 Yorkshire if they were encumbered with them. There 
 followed a zwlte-facc of the party. It appeared that more 
 than one-half of the Unionist Members in the House of 
 Commons were, in their inner souls, opposed to food 
 taxes. Many of the leading Unionist papers, including 
 Lord Northcliffe's three— the Times, Daily Mail, and the 
 Daily Mirror— declared strongly against them. 
 
 A panic seized the whole party. "A sudden whole- 
 sale abandonment," said Mr. Chaplin, "took place, not 
 on the question of principle, but to all appearances in a 
 panic of what we had been preaching for years about our 
 first constructive policy." 
 
 "We are in a moral interregnum," said Mr. Garvin, in 
 the Observer. "All was flinching, finessing, shifting, and 
 chaotic indiscipline and furtive intrigue. In all this 
 miserable sequence of newspaper manoeuvre, panic, stam- 
 pede and frantic snatching at supposed electioneering 
 advantages we see very little of political foresight or 
 shrewd political judgment." 
 
 What was clear was, that although the Tariff-mongers 
 hiid captured the political organisation of the Unionist 
 party, they had not succeeded in persuading a majority 
 of its rank and file as to the expediency and possibility of 
 taxing the food of the people. At all events, it was recog- 
 nised that it was impossible to persuade a majority of the 
 electors that taxes on imported food would not raise its 
 price to consumers. Ten years of effort, of boundless 
 expenditure, and of torrents of speeches had been in- 
 sufficient for the purpose, and three Genera! Elections had 
 shown that the electors were not to be gulled into food 
 taxes. What took place was a good illustration of the 
 old adage that "you may bring a horse to the water, 
 
THE "VOLTt-FACE" OF 1913 
 
 but you cannot make it drink." The Tariff Reformers, 
 by capturing the party organisation, had brought the 
 Unionist army to the brink of food taxes, but the rank 
 and file quailed at the last moment, and refused to 
 swallow the fatal policy. 
 
 It was a cruel blow to Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Bonar 
 Law, the leaders of the Unionist party in the two Houses. 
 They had so recently pledged themselves to food taxes 
 and to preferential treatment of the Colonies that it was 
 almost impossible for them to climb down. When the state of 
 opinion of the party became known to them, they threatened 
 their resignations as leaders. This spelt ruin to the party. 
 To avoid this disaster, and to make it possible for the 
 two leaders to retain their position, with some show of 
 consistency and honour, a novel device was resorted to. 
 A round robin was signed by all but a mere fraction of 
 the Members of the Unionist party in the House of 
 Commons, pledging themselves to protective duties on 
 imported manufactures, with such exemptions or partial 
 exemptions to colonial imports as might be possible, and 
 with a promise that a conference would be called of the 
 representatives of the Dominions to discuss some future 
 and wider scheme of food taxes, which might thereafter be 
 imposed. Under cover of this all but unanimous request 
 of the Unionist Members, which threw over food taxes, and 
 substantial preference to the Dominions until the General 
 Election after the next, Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Bonar 
 Law consented to eat the leek and to remain as leaders 
 of the party. Against this policy there were some pas- 
 sionate protests. Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Mr. Chaplin, 
 Mr. Jesse Collings and Mr. Hewins wrung their hands 
 in public, and declared that they had no part in the 
 jettison of their most cherished scheme of Food Taxes 
 and Preference. It did not, however, appear that they 
 were prepared to raise the banner of revolt. They 
 D 43 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLIXG 
 
 accepted, in fact, the decision of the party, and it is 
 presumed that they will be willing to take office, in the 
 event of a new Government being formed pledged not 
 to propose food taxes in the next Parliament, and that 
 they will be ready to co-operate in imposing import 
 duties on manufactured goods only. 
 
 Their position is probably well described in an 
 announcement made on behalf of the Tariff League in 
 its monthly notes of June last : 
 
 "While adhering loyally to the Edinburgh compro- 
 mise, they will do everything in their power to arouse 
 and direct public opinion on this great subject" (Tariff 
 Reform). "They will act as the pioneers or scouts of the 
 Unionist party. They will set the pace, whither the main 
 party must follow. They must not let their enthusiasm grow 
 cold, but must show, by public meetings, through the 
 Press and by putting pressure upon the party leader, that 
 the great bulk of the rank and file of the Unionist party 
 throughout the country are solid for the full policy of 
 Tariff Reform. The Unionist leaders would, we are con- 
 vinced, be grateful for such independent conduct, and we 
 may be sure that they would not disregard it." 
 
 One cannot but feel compassion for an association 
 subjected to this cruel rebuff and humiliation, and to their 
 being reduced to the humble rank of scouts to the Unionist 
 party. 
 
 VIII 
 
 The Passing of Tariff Reform 
 
 Let us now consider, from a practical point of vi(>w, the 
 
 position of Tariff Reform as it will be in the next few 
 
 years. It may be assumed that two years will elapse 
 
 44 
 
THE PASSING OF TARIFF REFORM 
 
 before the next General Election. If the Unionist party 
 should then be successful, a new Government will be 
 formed distinctly pledged not to propose food taxes during 
 the course of the new Parliament — that is, in all prob- 
 ability, for another period of five years. For seven long 
 years, therefore, from the present time, the country, it is 
 to be hoped, will be safe from the infliction of food taxes, 
 and Tariff-mongers will be eating their hearts out in vain 
 expectation of the main object of their policy. Unless 
 another volte-face takes place in the party, from which one 
 can never feel safe, it will not be till after a second General 
 Election — which may be expected to turn mainly on the 
 subject of food taxes — that a Unionist Government, if it 
 survives so fatal an issue, will be in a position to propose 
 them to Parliament. 
 
 Meanwhile, what are we to expect of a Unionist Govern- 
 ment returned to power after the next General Election, 
 with its hands tied as regards food taxes ? We have been 
 told that the Unionist Members of the House of Commons 
 have almost unanimously signed a document pledging 
 themselves to a policy of protective duties on imported 
 manufactured goods, and to such small modicum of 
 Preference as can be attained without food taxes. This 
 agreement, however, was arrived at only for the pur- 
 pose of saving the party from disintegration, by the 
 threatened resignation of its leaders, Lord Lansdowne 
 and Mr. Bonar Law. 
 
 There must be many elements of bitter disagreement 
 concealed under this thin veneer of a party compromise. 
 The Unionists in the north of England, and especially 
 those of Lancashire and Yorkshire, who so successfully 
 compelled the surrender of food taxes, are also, for the 
 most part, opposed to protective duties on manufactured 
 goods. The agricultural interest, craving for food taxes 
 and the raising of the prices of their products, which they 
 45 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 confidently hope and expect will result from them, will 
 be very unwilling to agree to a lop-sided scheme of Pro- 
 tection which will raise the price of their clothes, their 
 farm implements, their feeding stuffs, and of all their other 
 requirements, while leaving their own products without any 
 protection against foreign imports. It seems to be 
 certain that these discordant forces wall make themselves 
 felt, and will make it very difficult to come to agreement 
 for a practical scheme of protective duties on manufac- 
 tured goods only. The Unionist Government, however, 
 when it comes into existence, will have to agree upon a 
 scheme, and will have to propound it to Parliament and 
 the country as a policy for the reversal of Free Trade. 
 
 The present indications are that the duties on imported 
 manufactures are to average lo per cent. It is not clear 
 whether this means that they are to produce an income equal 
 to lo per cent, on the value of all imported articles, or 
 whether some duties are to be 20, 30, and even 40 per 
 cent., and others 8, 5 or 3 per cent., averaging 10 per cent, 
 in this way. Nor is it clear what are to be treated as 
 raw materials exempt from duty; whether leather, for 
 instance, indispensable for the manufacture of boots and 
 shoes, is to be treated as raw material; or whether it is 
 to be subject to duty, increasing the price of the finished 
 article and handicapping the export trade of boots; or 
 whether iron and steel, so necessary for the manufacture 
 of tin plates and an infinite variety of other goods, are to 
 be subject to duty, raising the price of these products for 
 export as against competitors in other countries. 
 
 There are many similar questions of the gravest 
 importance which must be settled before a cU'linite scheme 
 is determined on. Whatever the scheme may be, it will 
 be quite impossible to produce a reasoned defence of it, 
 such as that which was presented to the public ten years 
 ago at the inception of the Tariff movement. 
 46 
 
THE PASSING OF TARIFF REFORM 
 
 The arguments of Mr. Chamberlain in 1903 mainly 
 consisted in misstatements as to the stagnation of our 
 export trade in the previous years, and prophecies 
 founded on them of further decadence in the future, and 
 the impossibility of maintaining our trade against the 
 strangling tariffs of other countries. It was quite true that, 
 when measured in the values of each successive year, our 
 export trade for the previous thirty years had been almost 
 stationary, but in the interval there had been a very great 
 fall of prices, and, when measured in the values of 1872, 
 the export trade had made a considerable progress year 
 by year. This was clearly shown by the following figures, 
 supplied in 1902 by Mr. Gerald Balfour, then President 
 of the Board of Trade, giving the progress of our export 
 trade since 1873 in the prices of that year: 
 
 EXPORT OF BRITISH GOODS IN MILLIONS OF POUNDS. 
 
 
 
 Value of Exports 
 
 Value of Exports 
 
 
 
 in prices of 
 
 in 'prices of 
 
 
 
 the year. 
 
 ^1873. 
 
 1873 
 
 
 255 ... 
 
 255 
 
 1883 
 
 
 240 ... 
 
 295 
 
 1893 
 
 
 218 ... 
 
 320 
 
 1902 
 
 
 ... 283 ... 
 
 410 
 
 Increase of 1902 
 
 over 
 
 1873 23 ... 
 
 153 
 
 This table showed clearly how completely the great fall 
 of prices since 1873 concealed the real progress of trade. 
 Estimated in the prices of the year, the increase in the 
 thirty years was only 23 millions, or 8}4 per cent. When, 
 however, the exports of 1903 were valued in the prices of 
 1873, the increase was shown to be 153 millions, or 60 per 
 cent., or double the rate of increase of the population. 
 What concerns the country is the volume of our export 
 trade in affording employment for labour, not the varying 
 prices of the articles exported. 
 
 There was, indeed, some small excuse for Mr. Cham- 
 berlain in the fact that for two years before 1903 there 
 47 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 was little or no increase of our export trade. This was 
 due to the war in South Africa and the consequent waste 
 of ciipital. The year 1904, however, was the commence- 
 ment of a new era of activity and progress, continuing up 
 to the present time. Never in the past commercial history 
 of Great Britain has there been so great and continuous 
 an increase of trade— broken only by a single year of bad 
 trade, in 1908, caused by a monetary crisis in the United 
 States coincident with a bad season in India. This 
 prosperity has been shared in by every industry in the 
 country without exception. 
 
 The values, as declared, of our exports of British pro- 
 duce and manufactures rose from 290 millions in 1903 to 
 487 millions in 191 2. If measured in the prices of 1900, 
 they rose from 320 millions to 478 millions, an increase of 
 158 millions, or about 50 per cent., an average for the nine 
 years of 16^ millions, compared with an average increase 
 in the thirty previous years of 5 millions a year. 
 
 The details of this export trade show that there was 
 a greater relative increase of exports to countries and 
 Colonies with high protective duties than to those with 
 low tarifTs, or to India and British possessions where there 
 are no protective tariffs. 
 
 The increase of our export trade in the eight years 
 since 1904 to six highly protected countries in Europe — 
 namely, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Austria and 
 Spain — when measured in declared values, was 72 per 
 cent.; to the United States, 85 per cent.; to Canada, 
 Australia and New Zealand, 75 per cent.; while to the 
 other countries in Europe it was 45 per cent.; to India, 
 29 per cent. ; and to other British Possessions, 34 per cent. 
 It is, indeed, hardly fair to compare the trade of the six 
 highly protected countries in Europe with that of the 
 rapidly increasing populations of the United States, 
 Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The great increase 
 
 4S 
 
THE PASSING OF TARIFF REFORM 
 
 of our exports to the six protected countries is, therefore, 
 the more remarkable. 
 
 Coincident with this great increase of trade, there has 
 been a great improvement in the employment of labour, 
 and a very great reduction in the relative number of the 
 unemployed. The percentage of unemployment, which 
 in 1904 was 6 per cent., was 3 per cent, for 191 1, 3.2 per 
 cent, for 1912, and for the present year, for the first time 
 in the record of our trade, it has fallen to 1.9 per cent., a 
 lower rate, it is believed, than in any other part of the world. 
 
 The figures are a triumphant vindication of the policy 
 on which Free Trade was founded, namely, that the best 
 mode of fighting hostile tariffs is by the opening of our 
 ports free of duty to all imports. 
 
 This policy of sixty-seven years ago, based mainly on 
 the deductive reasoning of economists and statesmen, has 
 since been amply justified and affirmed by experience, and 
 never more so than during the last ten years. It is now 
 capable of inductive proof sufficient to satisfy all but the 
 most prejudiced and interested people. 
 
 The facts and figures we have quoted show that it is 
 not true that foreign countries by their protective systems 
 have been able to exclude our manufactures, or to 
 compete with us better in our home markets. The 
 increase of our exports in these ten years has been 
 largely to these very countries, in spite of their hostile 
 tariffs, while our imports from them of manufactured goods 
 have increased, if at all, at a very much lower rate. 
 
 The explanation of this remarkable result is not far 
 to seek. The countries which adopted these high tariffs 
 had two objects in view — the one to raise the price 
 of their own products, the other to limit or exclude the 
 competition of other countries. These two objects have 
 been to some extent antagonistic. In proportion as prices 
 were raised, the effect of the general scheme of higher 
 49 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 duties was lessened on many articles of which the com- 
 ponent parts were increased in cost. It has resulted that 
 in numerous cases, although our export trade suffered 
 reduction in special articles, in respect of which higher 
 duties have been imposed, yet after a time we have re- 
 covered a great part of it, by lowering ourselves the 
 cost of manufacture, and by raising the quality of 
 the article produced. We have been able to do this 
 in part owing to the low price of all the component parts 
 of the manufactured articles, due to their free import 
 without duty, and in part also owing to the increased cost 
 of manufacture in the protected countries. As a result of 
 these two causes, our manufacturers have been able to break 
 down the barriers of high duties, and to compete on more 
 favourable terms in the protected countries in the higher 
 grades of products. We stand to-day, after foreign 
 countries have done their best to check and reduce imports 
 from us, with an industrial organisation engaged in the 
 production of articles of a higher, and not of a lower, class 
 than in past years, and able to compete in those very 
 countries where the duties are highest. 
 
 If this has been the experience of trade with the protected 
 countries, still more so has it been the case of neutral 
 markets, where import duties are low or non-existent. In 
 such cases the policy of free imports to this country has 
 given us materials of all kinds, including semi-manufac- 
 tured goods, at the lowest cost, and has enabled us to 
 export with greater advantage to such countries than our 
 rivals in trade. This is the explanation of the great 
 superiority of British exports of manufactured goods to 
 India, China and other countries wlu iv the duties are low 
 or non-existent. 
 
 All this experience, however, has been totally ignored 
 by the Tariff-mongers in their ill-starred campaign on 
 behalf of Protection during the last ten years. All 
 50 
 
THE PASSING OF TARIFF REFORM 
 
 their assertions and predictions have been nullified, 
 and have been shown to be supremely ridiculous by 
 the course of our foreign trade during these years. Each 
 successive year has supplied progressive evidence of their 
 futility and absurdity. It is impossible to read Mr. 
 Chamberlain's speeches of 1903 or to scan the reports 
 and evidence before the unfortunate Tariff Commission 
 without contempt and pity for the authors of such 
 imbecilities. If ever in the future a Government should 
 have the opportunity of presenting a definite scheme of 
 protective duties to Parliament, it will be totally impos- 
 sible for them to justify and defend it by any arguments 
 founded on past experience; and when they attempt to 
 repeat the predictions of Mr. Chamberlain of 1903 and 
 of the witnesses of the luckless Tariff Commission, they 
 will be confronted with the past failures of these dis- 
 credited prophets. It will be asked why should those 
 who have been so unfortunate in their past predictions be 
 allowed to influence public opinion by renewed attempts 
 to foretell the future ? 
 
 In this view it is scarcely necessary to dilate fully on 
 the future effects of a lop-sided scheme of protective duties 
 on manufactured goods only. It may be well, however, 
 to point out that under a scheme of protective duties from 
 which food products are to be excluded, the one industry 
 in this country, which during the last thirty years has 
 passed through a severe crisis, in which serious losses 
 were incurred owing to the free import of foreign food 
 products, that of agriculture, happily now revived from 
 depression, will have nothing to gain from the scheme, 
 but will be subjected to serious penalties. Those engaged 
 in it will have to pay more for all their requirements, more 
 for their farm implements, machinery, harness and feed- 
 ing stuffs, more for their clothes and other necessaries of 
 life, while they will not benefit by the increase of price 
 51 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 of their products. A more one-sided, unfair and fatuous 
 scheme it would be impossible to conceive. It seems to 
 be wholly impossible that such a scheme will be accept- 
 able to the agriculturists, in whose interest the original 
 scheme of Mr. Chamberlain was largely framed. No 
 promises of extension of Protection to them after a second 
 General Election will be of any value. When the manu- 
 facturers of certain industries who think they will gain 
 by protective duties, and such of their employees as may 
 be gulled into the belief that they also will be gainers 
 in the long run, are satisfied by a scheme of duties apply- 
 ing only to manufactures, what reason is there to suppose 
 that they will take part in voting for taxes on food, which 
 can only worsen their own condition ? 
 
 There remains for consideration the effect of such a 
 scheme in the direction of Preference for Colonial products. 
 Almost the only true contention in the whole range of Mr. 
 Chamberlain's speeches in 1903 was his oft-repeated state- 
 ment that there could not be Preference without taxes on 
 food. This was long an aphorism of the Tariff Reform 
 League. The truth of this cannot now be denied. The 
 reason is that the imports from the Dominions are almost 
 wholly confined to food products. The imports of manu- 
 factured products from them are also a negligible quantity. 
 It would be impossible to frame a scheme of Preference on 
 them of any value whatever to the Dominions. It is sug- 
 gested that a Preference may be gi^'en in the case of sugar 
 in favour of West Indian produce, in the case of wine 
 in favour of Australia and South Africa, and in the case of 
 tobacco in favour of some other Colonies. But why should 
 we endanger the whole Customs revenue on those articles 
 for the little return which the Colonies benefiting from 
 these exemptions could give us? It is inconceivable that 
 any Chancellor of the Exchequer would be so fatuous as to 
 propose such a policy. 
 
 52 
 
THE PASSING OF TARIFF REFORM 
 
 There is the further question of India. If we reverse 
 the policy of free imports and impose protective duties 
 on imported manufactures, how will it be possible to 
 maintain a policy of Free Trade in India? We have been 
 able to do so till now because Free Trade has been the 
 settled policy of the Imperial Parliament, sustained by 
 the confident belief that protective duties are fraught with 
 injury and mischief to the mass of the people, in whose 
 interest they are supposed to be levied. It is in this 
 view that the Imperial Government has been able to 
 impose a Free Trade policy on the Indian Govern- 
 ment, and to forbid them levying import duties on manu- 
 factured goods unless accompanied by a countervailing 
 excise duty. 
 
 There is no doubt that public opinion in India — so far 
 as any such exists there — is in favour of protective duties, 
 as is generally the case with ignorant people prompted by 
 interested employers. It is possible to override this local 
 opinion in the general interest of the Empire, and under 
 the belief that India itself would suffer from a protective 
 system. But when, if ever, Free Trade is abandoned in 
 the United Kingdom, in the belief that it is wise and 
 sound policy to protect native industries by import duties, 
 it will be wholly impossible to refuse the same measure in 
 response to Indian opinion. It is absolutely certain that, 
 sooner or later, high protective duties will be imposed by 
 the Indian Government on imported British manufactures, 
 as well as those of other countries. The effect of such 
 duties in Lancashire, which now depends so largely for 
 its prosperity on its exports to India, will be disastrous in 
 the extreme. 
 
 It has, indeed, been suggested by Mr. Bonar Law that 
 the Indian case may be dealt with by duties being imposed 
 on manufactures imported from foreign countries, but with 
 exemption in the case of British goods. 
 53 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 "We have claims on India," he said; "we have done 
 India a great service, and have the right to say openly 
 that we are entitled to fair play upon the Indian market. 
 What Tariff Reform says to India is : 'If you want to 
 put on tariffs, put them on as against the rest of the world, 
 but be a Free Trade country to us and we will be a Free 
 Trade country to you." 
 
 The concession, however, of protective duties to India 
 with these exceptions in favour of Great Britain would 
 be of no value to the great dependency. It would be 
 resented by the unanimous opinion of that great depen- 
 dency, and would be a serious menace to our rule there. 
 
 Lord Crewe, the Secretary of State for India, immedi- 
 ately replied to Mr. Bonar Law : 
 
 "The Protectionist demand in India is for Protection 
 against Great Britain, and nothing less, for Great Britain 
 is by far the largest competitor with Indian manufactures." 
 
 "I deliberately characterise it as an unexampled mis- 
 fortune in the history of our Imperial connection with 
 India. I warn Mr. Bonar Law that it will be resented in 
 India, that it is resented already, and that, if he ever 
 seeks to put it into practice, it will be resented in a manner 
 that will create an unprecedented strain on India's loyalty 
 to the Empire." 
 
 It is impossible to believe that a scheme so unjust and 
 unequal to India could ever be seriously propounded even 
 by a Tariff Reform Government of Great Britain. A Pro- 
 tectionist policy in I-lngland must be accompanied by a 
 Protectionist policy in India — and directed against British 
 manufacturers equally as against those of other countries. 
 A trade, therefore, of nearly 60 mil'ions a year will be im- 
 perilled and untold disasters will result to Lancashire, if 
 India is permitted to impose protective duties. 
 
 Lastly there remains the question of the effect of 
 exemption of Colonial manufactures on our treaty rights 
 54 
 
THE PASSING OF TARIFF REFORM 
 
 with almost every foreign country for most-favoured-nation 
 treatment. It is certain that the scheme elaborated and 
 agreed upon by the Unionist party for a protective system, 
 with exemption of food products, but with preference in 
 favour of our Dominions in respect of the small residuum 
 of manufactured products, would cost the country most 
 heavily by depriving us of our treaty rights to most- 
 favoured-nation treatment, with the result that we should 
 find our manufactures subjected almost everywhere to 
 higher duties. It seems to be inconceivable that such a 
 scheme could be proposed or carried in the Imperial Par- 
 liament, even if a Unionist majority could be returned to it 
 more or less addicted to the principles of Protection. 
 
 Looking back, then, at the ten years of agitation on 
 behalf of the so-called Tariff Reform, we most confidently 
 assert that no more futile and hopeless a cause was ever 
 undertaken by politicians, some of them at the instance 
 of persons interested only in raising the prices of their 
 products, others hoping to ride into pow-er on the back of 
 a movement which they believed would be popular, and 
 some few of them honest, but ignorant, the dupes of able 
 and unscrupulous leaders. With scarcely an exception 
 every one of the statements of fact on which the move- 
 ment was based, at its inception, has been shown to be 
 untrue and without foundation, and every one of the 
 prophecies, which formed a large part of its stock-in-trdde, 
 has been falsified by subsequent events. The main pro- 
 position by which the votaries of the new Protection 
 endeavoured to gull the labouring classes was that import 
 duties on food and other products would not raise prices 
 to consumers, but would be paid by the foreigner. A 
 more misleading assertion was never propounded in the 
 field of politics and economics. It has been well said, 
 "Give a lie an hour's start, and it will travel round the 
 world." This lie, on which Tariff-mongers based their 
 SS 
 
A DECADE OF TARIFF FOOLING 
 
 cause, and by which they hoped to commend it to the 
 electors, has been exposed and refuted, and has entirely 
 failed to obtain credence in the country. It is still prob- 
 ably travelling on its course in remote districts where 
 ignorance prevails, and there are persons interested in 
 propagating this fallacy; but at every centre of intelligent 
 men it has long ago been nailed to the counter. 
 
 It must be admitted that the TarifT-mongers have been 
 singularly unfortunate in their ten years' campaign. Not 
 only have events turned out exactly the opposite of their 
 expectation, but from all parts of the world there have 
 come complaints of the injuries inflicted on the labouring 
 classes by protective tariffs, increasing the cost of living 
 to them, without adding to their wages and their means 
 of subsistence. Conclusive proof has also been forth- 
 coming of the evil eflfects of tariffs upon representative 
 institutions by subjecting them to the lobbying of 
 interested classes. 
 
 The only ostensible work during these ten years of 
 the Tariff Reform League has been their pretended 
 inquiries into many industries of the country with the 
 object of recommending a specific tariff — a task which 
 they were compelled to abandon before even reports could 
 be made on most of them, and a futile mission of work- 
 ing men to Germany and Belgium with the object of 
 making comparisons as to the conditions of working men 
 in this country. These two transactions must have caused 
 a great expenditure of money without any results of the 
 smallest value. Apart from these there has been nothing 
 to show as a result of the great income and expenditure of 
 the League. It must be presumed that the main part of it 
 has been expended in efforts to obtain control over the 
 organisation of the Unionist party with a view to General 
 Elections. In this they appear to have met with great suc- 
 cess, so far as the identification of their cause with that of 
 56 
 
THE PASSING OF TARIFF REFORM 
 
 the great Unionist party is concerned. Of the three 
 General Elections which have taken place since 1903, the 
 last two have been fought under the conditions of complete 
 identification of Tariff Reform and Unionism. But the 
 recent revolt within the party against food taxes, and the 
 postponement of them to some future Parliament other 
 than the next one, show that money, however lavishly 
 expended in capturing a party organisation, cannot make 
 certain of its prey, and that, in some way or other, the 
 counsels of the wiser leaders will prevail, or that a revolt 
 of the rank and file will occur, with the result that at the 
 last moment the carefully prepared plans of the intriguers 
 will be upset. It may be confidently expected that a 
 similar revolt will prevent the adoption of the remnant of 
 the Tariff scheme to which the Unionist members have 
 committed themselves. 
 
 In conclusion, we have only to add that nothing could 
 more effectually damn the cause of TarifT-mongers than 
 a comparison of the speeches of Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright 
 and other leaders of the Anti-Corn Law League, founded 
 in 1838, and which in eight years succeeded in defeating 
 Protection and in founding the policy of Free Trade, 
 with those of Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Hewins and other 
 founders of the Tariff League, who after ten years of 
 agitation have been compelled to jettison the main part 
 of their scheme. While the events of the past decade 
 have been the most splendid vindication of the former, 
 they have proved to be the most cruel exposure of the 
 latter. They suggest that the time has come when this 
 tariff fooling of ten years should be brought to an 
 ignominious end by a jettison of what remains of a 
 worthless cargo. 
 
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