all other political questions, but who are strongly and
conscientiously opposed to anything like what they call tampering with
our fiscal system, must by now understand a little better than they
did before what Tariff Reformers really aim at, and must begin to see
that there is nothing so very monstrous or revolutionary about our
proposals. I hope they may also begin to see why it is that Tariff
Reformers are so persistent and so insistent upon their own particular
view. There is something very attractive in the argument which says
that, since Tariff Reform is a stumbling-block to many good Unionists,
it should be dropped, and our ranks closed in defence of an effective
Second Chamber, and in defence of all our institutions against
revolutionary attacks directed upon the existing order of society. In
so far as this is an argument for tolerance and against
excommunicating people because they do not agree with me about Tariff
Reform, I am entirely in accord with it. I am only a convert to Tariff
Reform myself, although I am not a very recent convert, for at the
beginning of 1903, at Bloemfontein, I was instrumental in inducing all
the South African Colonies to give a substantial preference to goods
of British origin. I was instrumental in doing that some months before
the great Tariff Reform campaign was inaugurated in this country by
its leading champion, Mr. Chamberlain. But while I am all for personal
tolerance, I am opposed to any compromise on the question of
principle. I am not opposed to it from any perverseness or any
obstinacy. I am opposed to it because I see clearly that dropping
Tariff Reform will knock the bottom out of a policy which I believe is
not only right in itself, but is the only effective defence of the
Union and of many other things which are very dear to us--I mean a
policy of constructive Imperialism, and of steady, consistent,
unhasting, and unresting Social Reform.