petition they
were increasingly unable to bear, and would give a weapon for forcing
foreign countries to tear down their tariff barriers. The colonial
market, the home market, and the foreign market would thus all be
gained, and none too soon, if the complete decay of British industry
and the triumph of its rivals were to be averted. 'We have reached our
highest point,' declared Mr Chamberlain. 'Our fate will be the fate of
the empires and the kingdoms of the past.... Sugar has gone, silk has
gone, iron is threatened, wool is threatened, cotton will come.... We
are no longer first. We are third. We shall be fifth or sixth if
things go on as they are at present.... The trade of this country, as
measured by the exports to foreign countries and to British
possessions, {273} has during the last twenty or thirty years been
practically stationary; our export trade to all these foreign countries
which have arranged tariffs against us has enormously diminished, and
at the same time their exports to us have enormously increased.'

For a time it seemed that the tariff reformers would sweep all before
them. Their chief was the most skilful and popular leader of his time.
The inevitable growth of other countries in manufacturing had excited
the alarm of the British manufacturer, and protectionist sentiment
among the landowners, though scotched, had not been killed. The almost
universal reign of protection in foreign countries and the other
colonies appeared to prove obsolete the doctrines of Cobden and Bright.
It seemed that fifty years of unquestioned triumph in England itself
had left free trade a traditional dogma, not a living belief. To the
poor, tariff reform promised work; to the rich, a shifting of heavy
taxation from their shoulders; to the imperialist, the indissoluble
empire of his dreams.

Yet the pendulum soon swung against Mr Chamberlain. Investigation
showed that his jeremiads were largely unfounded, and gave new life to
the principles of free trade. They {274} were shown not to be obsolete
dogmas, but reasoned deductions from the actual situation of the United
Kingdom. Imperial preference meant a crippling tax on food and on raw
materials for no adequate return. The share of colonial markets which
British manufacturers did not have, for which they could compete, and
which colonial producers did not desire to keep themselves, was very
small. Mr Chamberlain was stricken soon after with lingering illne