|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 2
The Tariff Reformer rejects this single cast-iron principle. He
refuses to bow down before it, regardless of changing circumstances,
regardless of the policy of other countries and of that of the other
Dominions of the Crown. He wants a free hand in dealing with imports,
the power to adapt the fiscal policy of this country to the varying
conditions of trade and to the situation created at any given time by
the fiscal action of others. He has no superstitious objection to
using duties either to increase employment at home or to secure
markets abroad. But on the other hand he does not go blindly for
duties upon foreign imports as so-called Free Traders go blindly
against them, except in the case of articles not produced in this
country, some of which the Free Traders are obliged to tax
preposterously. Tariff Reform is not one-ideaed, rigid, inelastic, as
our existing system is. Many people are afraid of it, because they
think Tariff Reformers want to put duties on foreign goods for the fun
of the thing, merely for the sake of making them dearer. Certainly
Tariff Reformers do not think that cheapness is everything. Certainly
they hold that the blind worship of immediate cheapness may cost the
nation dear in the long run. But, unless cheapness is due to some
mischievous cause, they are just as anxious that we should buy cheaply
as the most ardent Cobdenite, and especially that we should buy
cheaply what we cannot produce ourselves. Talking of cheapness,
however, I must make a confession which I hope will not be
misunderstood by ladies present who are fond of shopping--I wish we
could get out of the way of discussing national economics so much from
the shopping point of view. Surely what matters, from the point of
view of the general well-being, is the productive capacity of the
people, and the actual amount of their production of articles of
necessity, use, or beauty. Everything we consume might be cheaper, and
yet if the total amount of things which were ours to consume was less
we should be not richer but poorer. It is, I think, one of the first
duties of Tariff Reformers to keep people's eyes fixed upon this vital
point--the amount of our national production. It is that which
constitutes the real income of the nation, on which wages and profits
alike depend.
And that brings me to another point. Production in this country is
dependent on importation, more dependent than in most countries. We
are not self-supplying. We must import from outside these islands vast
quantities of raw materials and of the necessaries of life. That, at
least, is common ground between the Free Trader and the Tariff
Reformer. But the lessons they draw from the fact are somewhat
different. The Free Trader is only anxious that we should buy all
these necessary imports as cheaply as possible. The Tariff Reformer is
also anxious that we should buy them cheaply, but he is even more
anxious to know how we are going to pay for all this vast quantity of
things which we are bound to import. And that leads him to two
conclusions. The first is that, seeing how much we are obliged to buy
from abroad in any case, he looks rather askance at our increasing our
indebtedness by buying things which we could quite easily produce at
home, especially with so many unemployed and half-employed people. The
other, and this is even a more pressing solicitude to him, is that it
is of vital importance to us to look after our external markets, to
make sure that we shall always have customers, and good customers, to
buy our goods, and so to enable us to pay for our indispensable
imports. The Free Trader does not share this solicitude. He has got a
comfortable theory that if you only look after your imports your
exports will look after themselves. Will they? The Tariff Reformer
does not agree with that at all. Imports no doubt are paid for by
exports, but it does not in the least follow that by increasing your
dependence on others you will necessarily increase their dependence on
you. It would be much truer to say: "Look after the exports and the
imports will look after themselves." The more you sell the more you
will be able to buy, but it does not in the least follow that the more
you buy the more you will be able to sell. What business man would go
on the principle of buying as much as possible and say: "Oh, that is
all right. I am sure to be able to sell enough to pay for it." The
first thought of a wise business man is for his markets, and you as a
great trading nation are bound to think of your markets, not only your
markets of to-day but of to-morrow and the day after to-morrow.
The Free Trade theory was the birth of a time when our imports were
practically all supplemental to our exports, all indispensable to us,
and when, on the other hand, the whole of the world was in need of our
goods, far beyond our power of supplying it. Since then the situation
has wholly altered. At this actual moment, it is true, there is
temporarily a state of things which in one respect reproduces the
situation of fifty years ago. There is for the moment an almost
unlimited demand for some of our goods abroad. But that is not the
normal situation. The normal situation is that there is an increasing
invasion of our markets by goods from abroad which we used to produce
ourselves, and an increasing tendency to exclude our goods from
foreign markets. The Tariff Reform movement is the inevitable result
of these altered circumstances. There is nothing artificial about it.
It is not, as some people think, the work of a single man, however
much it may owe to his genius and his courage, however much it may
suffer, with other good causes, through his enforced retirement from
the field. It is not an eccentric idea of Mr. Chamberlain's. Sooner or
later it was bound to come in any case. It is the common sense and
experience of the people waking up to the altered state of affairs,
beginning to shake itself free from a theory which no longer fits the
facts. It is a movement of emancipation, a twofold struggle for
freedom--in the sphere of economic theory, for freedom of thought, in
the sphere of fiscal policy, for freedom of action.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|