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Page 12
UNIONISTS AND SOCIAL REFORM
Rugby, November 19, 1907
There has been such a deluge of talk during the last three weeks that
I doubt whether it is possible for me, or any man, to make a further
contribution to the discussion which will have any freshness or value.
But inasmuch as you probably do not all read all the speeches, you may
perhaps be willing to hear from me a condensed summary of what it all
comes to--of course, from my point of view, which no doubt is not
quite the same as that of the Prime Minister or Mr. Asquith. Now, from
my point of view, there has been a considerable clearing of the air,
and we ought all to be in a position to take a more practical and less
exaggerated view of the situation. Speaking as a Tariff Reformer, I
think that those people, with whom Tariff Reformers agree on almost
all other political questions, but who are strongly and
conscientiously opposed to anything like what they call tampering with
our fiscal system, must by now understand a little better than they
did before what Tariff Reformers really aim at, and must begin to see
that there is nothing so very monstrous or revolutionary about our
proposals. I hope they may also begin to see why it is that Tariff
Reformers are so persistent and so insistent upon their own particular
view. There is something very attractive in the argument which says
that, since Tariff Reform is a stumbling-block to many good Unionists,
it should be dropped, and our ranks closed in defence of an effective
Second Chamber, and in defence of all our institutions against
revolutionary attacks directed upon the existing order of society. In
so far as this is an argument for tolerance and against
excommunicating people because they do not agree with me about Tariff
Reform, I am entirely in accord with it. I am only a convert to Tariff
Reform myself, although I am not a very recent convert, for at the
beginning of 1903, at Bloemfontein, I was instrumental in inducing all
the South African Colonies to give a substantial preference to goods
of British origin. I was instrumental in doing that some months before
the great Tariff Reform campaign was inaugurated in this country by
its leading champion, Mr. Chamberlain. But while I am all for personal
tolerance, I am opposed to any compromise on the question of
principle. I am not opposed to it from any perverseness or any
obstinacy. I am opposed to it because I see clearly that dropping
Tariff Reform will knock the bottom out of a policy which I believe is
not only right in itself, but is the only effective defence of the
Union and of many other things which are very dear to us--I mean a
policy of constructive Imperialism, and of steady, consistent,
unhasting, and unresting Social Reform.
I have never advocated Tariff Reform as a nostrum or as a panacea. I
have never pretended that it is by itself alone sufficient to cure all
the evils inherent in our social system, or alone sufficient as a bond
of Empire. What I contend is that without it, without recovering our
fiscal freedom, without recovering the power to deal with Customs
Duties in accordance with the conditions of the present time and not
the conditions of fifty years ago, we cannot carry out any of those
measures which it is most necessary that we should carry out. Without
it we are unable to defend ourselves against illegitimate foreign
competition; we are unable to enter into those trade arrangements with
the great self-governing States of the British Crown across the seas,
which are calculated to bestow the most far-reaching benefits upon
them and upon us; and we are unable to obtain the revenue which is
required for a policy of progressive Social Reform. I hope that people
otherwise in agreement with us, who have hitherto not seen their way
to get over their objections to Tariff Reform, will, nevertheless,
find themselves able to accept that principle, when they regard it,
not as an isolated thing, but as an essential part of a great national
and Imperial policy.
Of course, they will have to see it as it is, and not as it is
represented by its opponents. The opponents of Tariff Reform have a
very easy method of arguing with its supporters. They say that any
departure whatsoever from our present fiscal system necessarily
involves taxing raw materials, and must necessarily result in high and
prohibitive duties, which will upset our foreign trade, and will be
ruinous and disorganising to the whole business of the country. But
Tariff Reformers are not going to frame their duties in order to suit
the argumentative convenience of Mr. Asquith. They are going to be
guided by wholly different considerations from that. It is curious
that everybody opposed to Tariff Reform says that Tariff Reformers
intend to tax raw material, while Tariff Reformers themselves have
steadily said they do not. I ask you in that respect to take the
description of a policy of Tariff Reform from those who advocate it,
and not from those who oppose it. And as for the argument about high
prohibitive duties, I wish people would read the reports or summaries
of the reports of the Tariff Commission. They contain not only the
most valuable collection that exists anywhere of the present facts
about almost every branch of British industry but they are also an
authoritative source from which to draw inferences as to the
intentions of Tariff Reformers. Now the Tariff Reform Commission have
not attempted to frame a complete tariff, a scale of duties for all
articles imported into this country, and wisely, because, if they had
tried to do that, people would have said that they were arrogating to
themselves the duties of Parliament. What they have done is to show by
a few instances that a policy of Tariff Reform is not a thing in the
air, not a mere thing of phrases and catchwords, but is a practical,
businesslike working policy. They have drawn up what may be called
experimental scales of duties, which are merely suggestions for
consideration, with respect to a number of articles under the
principal heads of British imports, such as, for instance,
agricultural imports and imports of iron and steel. These experimental
duties vary on the average from something like 5 per cent. to 10 per
cent. on the value of the articles. In no one case in my recollection
do they exceed 10 per cent.
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