ve
the condition of the people at home, and to improve it concurrently
with strengthening the foundations of the Empire. Mind you, I do not
say that Tariff Reform alone is going to do all this. I make no such
preposterous claim for it. What I do say is that it fits in better
alike with a policy of social reform at home and with a policy
directed to the consolidation of the Empire than our existing fiscal
system does.

Now, what is the essential difference between Tariff Reformers and the
advocates of the present system? I must dwell on this even at the risk
of appearing tiresome, because there is so much misunderstanding on
the subject. In the eyes of the advocates of the present system, the
statesman, or at any rate the British statesman, when he approaches
fiscal policy, is confronted with the choice of Hercules. He is
placed, like the rider in the old legend, between the black and the
white horseman. On the one hand is an angel of light called Free
Trade; on the other a limb of Satan called Protection. The one is
entirely and always right; the other is entirely and always wrong.
All fiscal wisdom is summed up in clinging desperately to the one and
eschewing like sin anything that has the slightest flavour of the
other. Now, that view has certainly the merit of simplicity, and
simplicity is a very great thing; but, if we look at history, it does
not seem quite to bear out this simple view. This country became one
of the greatest and wealthiest in the world under a system of rigid
Protection. It has enjoyed great, though by no means unbroken,
prosperity under Free Trade. Side by side with that system of ours
other countries have prospered even more under quite different
systems. These facts alone are sufficient to justify the critical
spirit, which is the spirit of the Tariff Reformer. He does not
believe in any absolute right or wrong in such a matter as the
imposition of duties upon imports. Such duties cannot, he thinks, be
judged by one single test, namely, whether they do or do not favour
the home producer, and be condemned out of hand if they do favour him.

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 trad