For Free Trade

PREFACE

The General Election is now determined. The Conservative Party have suffered a defeat unprecedented in Parliamentary history, paralleled only by the consequences of the Reform Bill of 1832, unequalled even by that. To the victors the toils, to the vanquished reflection. Many explanations will be offered and disputed of the enormous transference of power which has been so swiftly, so suddenly, and so smoothly accomplished. We hear of misrepresentation and of ambiguity, of defective political machinery, of disunion between leaders, of apathy among followers, of the inevitable pendulum, of the Big Loaf, of Education and Chinese. Towards all such contentions history will observe an indulgent disdain. All elections that have ever been in England have been marked on the one side or the other by the same or similar features. There never was a contest when the beaten side did not complain of their opponents; did not passionately denounce the nation as ungrateful, ignorant, or deluded; did not assert that their cause was just and good, and would have triumphed but for lack of organization—a bolt here, a screw loose there; till one might think that all British politics were divided into three parts—clap-trap, caucus, and pendulum. This is a theory of national life and character as low as it is false.

‘How it happened?’ is an inquiry which may amuse, or at any rate occupy the leisure of those who have experienced disaster. ‘What has been settled’ is the concern of the public. To ask to-day what was the dominant issue of the polls is to provoke a babel of contradiction and recrimination. But ask that question twenty years hence! In twenty years the battle of 1906 will be only a dim memory. Many hopes will be withered, most of the combatants will be gone, all the anger will be cold; the catch-words will have become merely curious, and of the shouting scarcely an echo will return. A new generation with plans and conceptions of its own will be bustling in the world. What meaning will they construe from the electoral results of January? One fact alone will gleam out from a fading background—vivid, definite, unmistakable—that in the year 1906, after sixty years of fighting hostile tariffs by free imports, and in spite of the continuous contrary practice of the world, Great Britain was true to her ancient faith, and publicly reaffirmed, without qualification or compromise, the economic doctrines of Cobden and Bright and Peel.

In no part of the country has the economic question been made more distinctly and indisputably dominant than in the city of Manchester. Nowhere has the political revolution been more complete. The speeches now reprinted were delivered either in the House of Commons or in Manchester during the thirty months of agitation which preceded the General Election. They are but a runnel in a flood. But, however unimportant in themselves, they have met with some acceptance in a great commercial centre, and I believe that in a measure they represent its deliberate opinion upon fiscal policy. It is for that reason that I venture to bring them together within the protection of a cover, albeit only of paper, and preserve them for a while from the abyss.

To say that the maintenance of Free Trade is the mandate of the Election, does not imply that such a negative policy will be its one result. Cardinal elections are few and far between. Their consequences govern the years that follow. The Free Trade victory has ushered in an epoch. The reader whose taste or curiosity leads him to explore Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, will find few speeches more instructive than that in which Mr. Disraeli explained his reasons for not taking office in 1873. How hopefully the Conservative leader looked forward to the approaching ascendancy of his party! ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that the Tory party at the present moment occupies the most satisfactory position it has filled since the days of its greatest statesmen, Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville. It has divested itself of those excrescences which are not indigenous to its native growth. We are now emerging from the fiscal period in which almost all the public men of this generation have been brought up. All the questions of trade and navigation, of the incidence of taxation, and of public economy, are settled.’ New questions, he pointed out, of Monarchy, of Church, of Empire, were coming into the political arena, and in their debate he predicted for his party the sunshine of popular support. Adopting and applying Mr. Disraeli’s terminology, we may assign divisions to the past. From 1832 to 1874, the Fiscal period of Liberal ascendancy, with its watchword, ‘Free Trade, Peace and Goodwill to all nations;’ from 1874 to 1906, the Imperialistic period of Tory and Tory Democratic ascendancy, with its motto, ‘Imperium et Libertas.’ And what of the future? Shall we say from 1906 the Social period—of Labour influence rousing from a Liberal party the war-cry, ‘Equal opportunity for all’?

But it should not be supposed that changes from period to period, which we discern in retrospect and somewhat arbitrarily (for convenience in thinking) rule off with hard and sharp lines, necessarily involve any rupture in the peaceful continuity of our island life. Thoughtless people in easy circumstances, who live through them, are mostly unconscious that any alteration has taken place. It is only when we look back that the length of the journey can be measured. Nor will the work of one generation abolish or efface the real achievements of its forerunner.

When the Fiscal period ended, Free Trade, with all its victories, disappeared from the public mind and from Parliamentary affairs. For nearly thirty years the great developments of Imperialism were superimposed upon political situations. But all the time Free Trade doctrines reigned undefended, unchallenged, and secure. But when challenged, how triumphantly vindicated! So will it be with all that is noble and precious in what is called Imperialism. That great acceptance by democracy of world-wide responsibilities is in itself an enduring fact not to be rashly assailed. The morose, sordid, and often absurd extravagances which have rendered detestable these later years have encountered a fitting chastisement. But the good is preserved. An honest national pride in great dominion and glorious history, a warm affection for kith and kin beyond the seas, a serene confidence that unity will be fostered by freedom, a profound yet reasoned respect for an ancient monarchy, are feelings which have taken a permanent place in the heart of the nation.

Great peoples in the enjoyment of free institutions are always groping for the truth. In party struggles they gather much besides. But whatever true gold may be gained is vigilantly guarded. The waves of partisanship advance and recoil; but the tide of ascertained truth continually comes on. And so I do not doubt that this new epoch into which we have entered will create new values without destroying old values, and will multiply the inheritors without consuming the estate.

WINSTON S. CHURCHILL.   

March 12th, 1906.

THE

PRELUDE TO PROTECTION.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

April 14th, 1902.

After the war is over we shall have to meet increased demands for ordinary expenditure, with a revenue which will be less than the present revenue by the revival of the Sinking Fund and the reduction of the income tax; and we shall have to do this without the patriotic stimulus due to the war, and perhaps without the prosperous conditions of the present time. The result is plain and evident. The basis of taxation will have to be enlarged—further enlarged—and it is just as well to face the fact that further expenditure means the serious taxation of bread and meat, and other necessities in the food of the people. And that, Sir—I say—is going to raise two gigantic issues. First of all, I am persuaded that it will raise the whole question of Fair Trade Taxation, imposed no doubt sincerely to begin with solely for revenue purposes, will under the influence of the hon. and gallant member for Sheffield¹—not less gallant in the field of economics than on the field of war—assume a protective character. For why, it will be said, should we not kill three birds at one stone—collect our revenue, support British industries, and consolidate the Empire?

I wonder, Sir, what will happen to this country if the Fair-trade issue is boldly raised by some responsible person of eminence and authority? We shall find ourselves once again on an old battlefield. Around will be the broken weapons, the grass-grown trenches and neglected graves—reviving former memories, and party bitterness, such as this generation has not known. How is it going to split existing political organizations, now so artificially serene? These are the questions of the future; but, Sir, when I think of this Budget, I would say, of the near future, and when they arise they will have to be answered, by timid men as well as by bold men.

And there is another issue even more momentous that will be raised by this expenditure, demanded as it is by all, grudged by none. Perhaps some day there will come a Chancellor of the Exchequer with power, and he, with public opinion behind him, with patience, with thrift, with parsimony even, at the cost of his popularity, perhaps of his reputation, will be able to reduce the expenditure, which has bounded up 42 millions in five years: by what?—10 millions perhaps. ‘Vestigia nulla retrorsum,’ is the motto of the Spending Departments. These burdens, so easily laid on, will cling for ever. In 1885 the 100 million Budget was a wild prophecy. The 100 million Budget is ancient history. The 150 million Budget, for ordinary expenditure, I mean, is upon us already. The 200 million Budget looms portentous in the future. And perhaps the country will welcome it! Yes; but who is going to pay? It is a weighty question—for the Conservative party. The basis of taxation must be broadened, the revenue must be increased; there will, perhaps, be overwhelming agreement on that. Is it seriously supposed that the Democratic electorate of this country will allow the burden to be placed upon their shoulders?

I make no aspersions upon the patriotism of the people. I think the Government are quite right in their War and diplomacy in South Africa to count upon unwavering and unselfish support; but the resistance will be automatic and unconscious, rather than deliberate. Last year, my right hon. friend, the Member for Montrose,² quoted to the House a number of figures collected from the last sixty years, respecting the proportions of direct and indirect taxation. I