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Page 5
I do not think it is necessary for me to point out how a widespread
tariff, besides those other advantages which I have indicated, would
strengthen our hands in commercial policy. In the first place, it
would at once enable us to meet the advances of the other States of
the Empire, and to make the British Empire in its commercial aspect a
permanent reality. To do this it would not be necessary, nor do I
think it would be right, to exempt goods from the British Dominions
entirely from the duties to which similar goods coming from foreign
lands are subject. Our purpose would be equally well served by doing
what the Colonies do, and having two scales of duty, a lower one for
the products of all British States and Dependencies, a higher one for
those of the outside world. The amount of this preference would be a
matter of bargain to be settled by some future Imperial Conference,
not foredoomed to failure, and preceded by careful preliminary
investigation and negotiations. It might be twenty-five, or
thirty-three, or even fifty per cent. And whatever it was, I think we
should reserve the right also to give a preference, but never of the
same amount, to any foreign country which was willing to give us some
substantial equivalent. It need not be a general preference; it might
be the removal or reduction of some particular duties. I may say I do
not myself like the idea of engaging in tariff wars. I do not believe
in prohibitive or penal tariffs. But I do believe in having something
to give to those who treat us well, something to withhold from those
who treat us badly. At present, as you are well aware, Great Britain
is the one great nation which is treated with absolute disregard by
foreign countries in framing their tariffs. They know that however
badly they treat us they have nothing to lose by it, and so we go to
the wall on every occasion.
And now, though there is a great deal more to be said, I feel I must
not trespass much further on your patience. But there is one objection
to Tariff Reform which is constantly made, and which is at once so
untrue and so damaging, that before sitting down I should like to say
a few words about it. We are told that this is an attempt to transfer
the burden of a part of our taxation from the shoulders of the rich to
those of the poor. If that were true, it would be fatal to Tariff
Reform, and I for one would have nothing to do with it. But it is not
true. There is no proposal to reduce and I believe there is no
possibility of reducing, the burden which at present falls on the
shoulders of the upper and middle classes in the shape of direct
taxation. On the other hand, I do not believe there is much room for
increasing it--though I think it can be increased in one or two
directions--without consequences which the poorer classes would be the
first to feel. Excise duties, which are mainly paid by those classes,
are already about as high as they can be. It follows that for any
increase of revenue, beyond the ordinary growth arising from increase
of wealth and population, you must look, at least to a great extent,
to Customs duties. And the tendency of the time is towards increased
expenditure, all of it, mind you--and I do not complain of the
fact--due to the effort to improve the condition of the mass of the
people. It is thus no question of shifting existing burdens, it is a
question of distributing the burden of new expenditure of which the
mass of the people will derive the benefit. And if that new
expenditure must, as I think I have shown, be met, at least in large
part, by Customs duties, which method of raising these duties is more
in the interest of the poorer classes--our present system, which
enhances enormously the price of a few articles of universal
consumption like tea and sugar and tobacco, or a tariff spread over a
much greater number of articles at a much lower rate? Beyond all doubt
or question the mass of the people would be better off under the
latter system. Even assuming--as I will for the sake of argument,
though I do not admit it--that the British consumer pays the whole of
the duty on imported foreign goods competing with British goods, is it
not evident that the poorer classes of the community would pay a
smaller proportion of Customs duties under a tariff which included a
great number of foreign manufactured articles, at present entirely
free, and largely the luxuries of the rich, than they do, when Customs
duties are restricted to a few articles of universal consumption?
And that is at the same time the answer to the misleading, and often
dishonest, outcry about "taxing the food of the people," about the big
loaf and little loaf, and all the rest of it. The construction of a
sensible all-round tariff presents many difficulties, but there is
one difficulty which it does not present, and that is the difficulty
of so adjusting your duties that the total proportion of them falling
upon the wage-earning classes shall not be increased. I for one regard
such an adjustment as a postulate in any scheme of Tariff Reform. And
just one other argument--and I recommend it especially to those
working-class leaders who are so vehement in their denunciation of
Tariff Reform. Is it of no importance to the people whom they
especially claim to represent that our fiscal policy should lean so
heavily in favour of the foreign and against the British producer? If
they regard that as a matter of indifference, I think they will come
to find in time that the mass of the working classes do not agree with
them. But be that as it may, it is certain that I, for one, do not
advocate Tariff Reform in the interests of the rich, but in the
interests of the whole nation, and therefore necessarily of the
working classes, who are the majority of the nation.
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