iption of a policy of Tariff Reform from those who advocate it,
and not from those who oppose it. And as for the argument about high
prohibitive duties, I wish people would read the reports or summaries
of the reports of the Tariff Commission. They contain not only the
most valuable collection that exists anywhere of the present facts
about almost every branch of British industry but they are also an
authoritative source from which to draw inferences as to the
intentions of Tariff Reformers. Now the Tariff Reform Commission have
not attempted to frame a complete tariff, a scale of duties for all
articles imported into this country, and wisely, because, if they had
tried to do that, people would have said that they were arrogating to
themselves the duties of Parliament. What they have done is to show by
a few instances that a policy of Tariff Reform is not a thing in the
air, not a mere thing of phrases and catchwords, but is a practical,
businesslike working policy. They have drawn up what may be called
experimental scales of duties, which are merely suggestions for
consideration, with respect to a number of articles under the
principal heads of British imports, such as, for instance,
agricultural imports and imports of iron and steel. These experimental
duties vary on the average from something like 5 per cent. to 10 per
cent. on the value of the articles. In no one case in my recollection
do they exceed 10 per cent.

But then the opponents of Tariff Reform say: "Yes. That is all very
well. But though you may begin with moderate duties, you are bound to
proceed to higher ones. It is in the nature of things that you should
go on increasing and increasing, and in the end we shall all be
ruined." I must say that seems to me great nonsense. It reminds me of
nothing so much as the fearful warnings which I have read in the least
judicious sort of temperance literature, and sometimes heard from
temperance orators of the more extreme type--the sort of warning, I
mean, that, if you once begin touching anything stronger than water,
you are bound to go on till you end by beating your wife and die in a
workhouse. But you and I know perfectly well that it is possible to
have an occasional glass of beer or glass of wine, or even, low be it
spoken, a little whisky, without beating or wanting to beat anybody,
and without coming to such a terrible end. The argument against the
use of anything from its abuse has always struck me as one