Preferential Trade, or Protection. It is too late in the day for anyone to attempt to refute the statement that Protection, pure and simple, would mean dearer food, dearer raw material, a higher cost of living, the diminution of general comfort, and a seriously increased cost of production, to say nothing of the dislocation of business which would ensue, and which might arouse in this country the political discontent, the sense of injustice, and class hatred which is such a striking feature in the social economy of Russia, as well as Germany. It may, however, be urged that Protection is not before the country, that the Prime Minister says he is not a Protectionist, and that he declines to lead a Protectionist Party. I propose, therefore, to deal for a few minutes with the policy known as Mr. Balfour's, viz., Retaliation, or the imposition of Customs duties with the ostensible object of forcing foreigners to lower their tariffs and take more of our goods. This, to my mind, is to do evil in the hope that good may come of it. Let us reduce the question to a definite and practical issue, because, after all, it is essentially a question for practical business men. Mr. Balfour asks permission to retaliate, that is, to declare commercial war, not against any one country in particular, but against all countries in general, not, he says, to enhance prices here, but to force others to buy more from us. Although I have looked very anxiously, I have not seen or heard how this is to be done. Hitherto the advocates of great changes have explained their policy. They drew forecasts of their methods, and stated the probable results and their benefits and advantages, just as, when starting a commercial enterprise, we try to think everything out, or, to put it shortly, we look before we leap. Our Ministers act differently. They would take this leap in the dark, and would declare commercial war with a light heart, hoping their opponents would capitulate at once; they would convulse and dislocate our immense trade just as they entered into the South African War, without foresight, without plans, and without preparation, and on the same erroneous assumption. We have to remember that our position and circumstances to-day are vastly different to our position and circumstances prior to the abolition of the Corn Laws. We have gigantic and continually increasing traffic, not merely with tariff countries, but with the whole world, and it is no light thing to experiment with the fundamental principles on which that trade has been built up, viz., an unfettered market for the exchangeable commodities of the entire world. There is this vital difference between the two contending policies: You do not risk the loss of any trade when you open your markets-you may risk the loss of much when you hedge them about with restrictions. I do not say all is well; I do not say that we are in a prosperous condition; I do not say that the future is free from anxiety; but I do say that the proposals of the Government would be dangerous and ruinous to our industries and the best interests of the country. The remedy is not tariffs, nor

is it a general reduction of our workmen's wages to the low level of their competitors on the Continent, but national sobriety, national energy, national industry, national application, national efficiency. Possessed of these qualities, I have no fear as to our country maintaining its position as a commercial and manufacturing nation. Much as I should like higher prices, much as I desire trade improvement, I cannot see how a tariff war would do us anything but great harm, and deprive many thousands of their employment. Let me assume that the Ministry, in order to increase the sale of Lancashire cotton, Yorkshire woollens, and Nottingham lace, determined to compel foreigners to receive more of these goods, and with this object imposed heavy retaliatory duties. They might single out, say, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Italy, or some other countries. These countries in their turn would retaliate by increasing the duties on those English goods they buy, and also by imposing a differential export duty on iron ore, sulphur ore, silver, lead, copper ore, pit props, timber, wood pulp, etc., which would seriously injure our steel, lead, and chemical industries, our shipbuilding, and our collieries, and would certainly not increase the sale of Lancashire and Bradford soft goods. This would only be following our own foolish example in taxing the export of coal. All the countries with whom we might be at war commercially would retaliate on us by imposing a heavy duty on English coal, and thereby reduce the export of forty-eight million tons, the loss of which on our outward freights would only increase the cost of those things we require to import for the purpose of carrying on our various manufacturing industries. Furthermore, all those countries might put differential duties on all goods imported by British steamers into their countries and colonies. I leave you to imagine how this would affect us in this country as the largest shippers and carriers of the world. I contend, therefore, that Mr. Balfour's policy of Retaliation is not feasible, and cannot be enforced without immense suffering and disturbance. Our trade is so large, so varied, so universal, so farreaching that commercial war means widespread ruin, and in the interests of the whole community it is our duty to meet it with uncompromising resistance.

Mr. REGINALD MCKENNA., M.P. (Monmouthshire Northern Division), seconded. He said Sir Christopher Furness was a captain of a ruined industry. If all they were told by tariff reformers was true, during the long years of his active career he must have been a pained spectator of the slow dwindling of his undertakings under the baneful influence of free imports. They could only imagine what were the original gigantic proportions of his business by such remains as they saw to-day occupying the intervals of his unemployment. In spite of his bitter personal experience, he remained an impenitent Cobdenite, and in the true spirit of that false and exploded prophet he had been trying to persuade them that afternoon that taxation, even though it was scientific, did not constitute

prosperity, and that Colonial preference, though the "missionary of Empire" himself preached the gospel, did not make for lasting Imperial unity. It was a remarkable phenomenon, peculiar, he thought, to this country, that so many of their captains of industry had been found fighting in defence of Free Trade. In Germany or the United States, when great manufacturers sought to exercise political influence, it was chiefly in an endeavour to raise duties. They called it defending the home market, but whatever the name, the intention and the effect of the duties was to enable those manufacturers to exploit their fellow-countrymen. No nation ever did or ever could become rich by taxes, but taxes might easily be a means of transferring money from the needy many to the greedy few. All honour was due to those who had refused to cozen and cajole the electorate into consenting to laws which, by raising prices, would filch from the mass of the people some portion of the reward which they now obtained for their labour. The tariff reformer said there would be more employment-two jobs for one man. Mr. Chamberlain understood the painful position of two men for one job. He knew well enough how he could increase his employment, by getting rid of his rival. Two years ago, when this question was sprung upon the public, there was serious ground for alarm; to-day what a different spectacle presented itself. The nation had been instructed in the meantime, and was satisfied to stand by Free Trade. Though the struggle had been a hard one, it had been a great time of revival for the Liberal Party. It had taught the Liberal Party to realise again its own strength, and it had made the nation understand how much the Liberal Party meant for good in the country. The time was coming when they would be able to record their victory at the ballot-box; but they must remain strenuous in their efforts until that moment.

The resolution was then carried unanimously.

Labour and the Unemployed.

Mr. CHARLES FENWICK, M.P. (Northumberland-Wansbeck Division), moved :—

“That this Council is strongly of opinion that immediate steps should be taken to restore to workmen the right of effective combination of which they have recently been deprived by decisions of the Courts. This Council is also

of opinion that the State should create permanent machinery applicable to the whole country for investigating and alleviating the lack of employment caused from time to time by exceptional trade depression."

He said the resolution raised two questions of vital importance and interest to the working classes of this country. The right of free and effective combination, which workmen won from Parliament after long years of stress and struggle, had recently, by decisions given in the higher Courts of this country, been very considerably jeopardised and restricted. He quite admitted that the right of effective combination was liable to be abused; but it

ought not to be forgotten that the power to strike and to make collective bargains between the employers on the one hand and the employees on the other was about the only weapon of defence which workmen had to protect themselves against acts of cruelty and tyranny. The situation in which they found themselves as trade unionists was far from satisfactory, and perhaps this state of things was largely due to the apathy and indifference of working men themselves. They were too keen a few years ago on meddling and interfering in other people's business to look after and protect their own, and the position in which trade unionists found themselves to-day was largely the penalty they were paying for the mafficking in which they indulged some five or six years ago. No one could deny that the present position was confusing. It was impossible for a layman to say where they were in regard to the law affecting combination, and there appeared to be great conflict of opinion amongst the learned profession as to what the law was. That was a condition of things which ought not to be tolerated. It was a menace to the trade and commerce of the country. It was a condition of things which did not tend towards industrial peace on the one hand, or the cultivation of good relationships and understandings between working men and their employers on the other. So it became of the utmost importance that the Government should come to the assistance of trade unionists in this matter, and help them to restore the law to what it was understood to be prior to the recent decisions of the Courts. As to the second part of the resolution, they were all practically agreed as to the evil itself. The non-employment question was not a simple problem. It was very complex, and was affected from time to time by climatic causes, changes of fashion, by revolutions which were continually going on in the methods of production both at home and abroad; and all these considerations tended to confuse the issue and make the problem very complex. Probably the most they could do was expressed in the words of the resolution. They wanted more permanent machinery, so that when depression came round the workmen might turn to it, and obtain the much-needed assistance. should be understood that this problem could not be solved by mere proposals of tariff reform. On the contrary, in his judgment, it was more likely to be accentuated and intensified by such remedies. Above all, it should not be made a party question.

It

Mr. W. H. LEVER (Chairman of the Wirral Liberal Association) seconded. He said it would be a disaster to the country if workmen had no right to effective combination. Effective organisation of labour would give the public the cheapest and best quality of goods, would give the workmen the security to which he was entitled, and entitled, and give the employer certainty in the conduct of his business, which he otherwise would not have. There ought to be some permanent machinery in this country for dealing with the problem of the unemployed. We

had adopted the system of free education, which was in reality education on the hire system, for when a youth reached manhood he paid for it in his rates and taxes. There was no reason why this principle could not be extended to deal with the unemployed, and even to providing old-age pensions, so long as the funds required were an evenly-adjusted burden on all classes.

The resolution was carried unanimously.