d 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.

And that freedom of action is needed quickly. It is needed now. I am
not doubtful of the ultimate triumph of Tariff Reform. Sooner or
later, I believe, it is sure to achieve general recognition. What does
distress me is the thought of the opportunities we are losing in the
meantime. This year has been marked, disastrously marked, in our
annals by the emphatic and deliberate rejection on the part of our
Government of the great principle of Preferential Trade within the
Empire. All the other self-governing States are in favour of it. The
United Kingdom alone blocks the way. What does that mean? What is it
that we risk losing as long as we refuse to accept the principle of
Preferential Trade, and will certainly lose in the long run if we
persist in that refusal? It is a position of permanent and assured
advantage in some of the greatest and most growing markets in the
world. Preference to British goods in the British dominions beyond the
sea would be a constant and potent influence tending to induce the
people of those countries to buy what they require to buy outside
their own borders from us rather than from our rivals. It means beyond
all doubt and question so much more work for British hands. And the
people of those countries are anxious that British hands should get
it. They have, if I may so express myself, a family feeling, which
makes them wish to keep the business within the family. But business
is business. They are willing to give us the first chance. But if we
will give nothing in return, if we tell them to mind their own
business and not to bot