e been submitted to the
people of this country at a general election.'

Thus, after ten years of ardent agitation for tariff reform, one great
party in the state was as resolutely opposed to the scheme as ever,
and, while the other was committed to it, the duty on foodstuffs, once
declared essential to save the Empire, was made conditional and given
second place to protection of manufacturers. It was by no means
improbable that the whirligig of time would once more bring to the
front food taxes and imperial preference. Yet as far as the early
years of the century went, the years within which Mr Chamberlain
declared that the decision had to be made, no step towards preference
had {281} been taken by Great Britain, and still the Empire drew closer
together instead of drifting apart. As a matter of fact, the
empire-binding value of tariff preference was greatly exaggerated by
its advocates. The Laurier-Fielding preference was a real bond of
imperial unity simply because it was a free-will offering, given from
motives of sentiment, not of profit. A system of preferences such as
Mr Chamberlain advocated might possibly be a good business arrangement
for one or all of the countries concerned, but it could have little
force as empire-cement. It would be a matter of cold-blooded bargain,
on a par with the similar reciprocal or preferential arrangements which
the protectionists proposed to make with foreign countries. There
would be nothing exclusive about it.

Good came of the agitation. It compelled a bed-rock consideration of
British business and social conditions, and proved that if free trade
had made possible the production of great wealth, it had not been
enough to ensure its fair distribution. This searching inquest was
largely responsible for the great series of democratic and social
reforms adopted by the Asquith Government, reforms which gave the
United Kingdom the world's leadership in {282} democracy and won fresh
sympathy and loyal emulation in the Dominions. In undying words Mr
Asquith gave (1909) a definition of Liberalism which awoke immediate
sympathy in every Dominion. It expressed in concentrated form ideals
which more and more would be the common heritage of all the Empire,
particularly in those Dominions, such as Australia and Canada, where
all parties are almost equally democratic and progressive:

As regards the Empire, to secure full unity by allowing the greatest
diversity and the fullest