s, as well as the more
old-fashioned protectionists (like Mr Chaplin) who formed an integral
body of the Conservative party, had looked forward to this tax being
converted into a differential one between foreign and colonial corn, so
as to introduce a scheme of colonial preference and commercial
consolidation between the colonies and the mother country. In South
Africa--as in any other British colony, since all of them were
accustomed to tariffs of a protectionist nature, and the idea of a
preference (already started by Canada) was fairly popular--Mr
Chamberlain had found this view well established. The agitation in
England against the tax had now blown over. The Unionist rank and file
were committed to its support,--many even advocating its increase to two
shillings at least. But Mr Ritchie, the chancellor of the exchequer,
having a surplus in prospect and taxation to take off, carried the
cabinet in favour of again remitting this tax on corn. Mr Chamberlain
himself had proposed only to take it off as regards colonial, and not
foreign corn,--thus inaugurating a preferential system. But a majority
of the cabinet supported Mr Ritchie. The remission of this tax, after
all the conviction with which its restoration had been supported a year
before, was very difficult for the party itself to stomach, and on any
ground it was a distasteful act, loyally as the party followed their
leaders. But to those who had looked to it as providing a lever for a
gradual change in the established fiscal system, the _volte-face_ was a
bitter blow, and at once there began, though not at first openly, a
split between the more rigid free-traders--advocates of cheap food and
free imports--and those who desired to use the opportunities of a
tariff, of however moderate a kind, for attaining national and imperial
and not merely revenue advantages. This idea, which had for some time
been floating in Mr Chamberlain's mind (see especially his speech at
Birmingham of May 16, 1902), now took full possession of it. For the
moment he remained in the cabinet, but the seed of dissension was sown.
The first public intimation of his views was given in a speech to his
constituents at Birmingham (May 15, 1903), when he outlined a plan for
raising more money by a rearranged tariff, partly to obtain a
preferential system for the empire and partly to produce funds for
social reform at home. On May 28th in the House of Commons he spoke on
the same subject, and decla