plainest terms offered us preference for preference, this device
evidently had to be abandoned. So then it was asserted that, in order
to give preference to the Colonies, we must tax raw materials. But
this move again was promptly checkmated by the clear and repeated
declaration of the Colonial representatives that they did not expect
us to tax raw materials. And so nothing was left to Ministers,
determined as they were to wriggle out of any agreement with the
Colonies at all costs, except to fall back on the old, weary
parrot-cry--"Will you tax corn?" "Will you tax butter?" and so on
through the whole list of articles of common consumption, the taxation
of any one of which was thought to be valuable as an electioneering
bogey.

For my own part, I am not the least bit frightened by any of these
questions. If I am asked whether I would tax this or tax that, it may
be proof of great depravity on my part, but I say without hesitation,
that, for a sufficient object, I should not have the least objection
to putting two shillings a quarter on wheat or twopence a pound on
butter. But I must add that the whole argument nauseates me. What sort
of opinion must these gentlemen have of their fellow countrymen, if
they think that the question of a farthing on the quartern loaf or
half a farthing on the pat of butter is going to outweigh in their
minds every national consideration? And these are the men who accused
Mr. Chamberlain of wishing to unite the Empire by sordid bonds! It is
indeed extraordinary and to my mind almost heartrending to see how
this question of Tariff Reform continues to be discussed on the lowest
grounds, and how its higher and wider aspects seem to be so constantly
neglected. Yet we have no excuse for ignoring them. The Colonial
advocates of Preference, and especially Mr. Deakin, with whose point
of view I thoroughly agree, have repeatedly explained the great