Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 by Various
page 79 of 207 (38%)
page 79 of 207 (38%)
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procedure in regard to the promise made five years ago to Canada that
she, with the other Dominions, should have a relative preference in our markets for her products. In so far as that plan involved an advantage to our own Dominions over the Allies who, equally with them, bore with us the heat and burden of the war, it was as impolitic as it was unjust, and as unflattering as it was impolitic, inasmuch as it assumed that the Dominions wanted a "tip" as a reward for their splendid comradeship. As it turns out, the one concession that Canada really wanted was the removal of the invidious embargo on Canadian store cattle in our ports. And whereas a promise to that effect was actually given by the tariffist Coalition during the war, it is only after five years that the promise is about to be reluctantly fulfilled. It was a promise, be it observed, of _free importation_, and it is fulfilled only out of very shame. It may be surmised, indeed, that the point of the possible lifting of the Canadian embargo was used during the negotiations with Ireland to bring the Sister State to terms; and that its removal may lead to new trouble in that direction. But that is another story, with which Free Traders are not concerned. Their withers are unwrung. SCIENCE AND EXPERIENCE On the total survey, then, the case for Free Trade is not only unshaken, it is stronger than ever before, were it only because many of the enemy have visibly lost faith in their own cause. The Coalition, in which professed Liberals were prepared to sacrifice something of Free Trade to colleagues who were pledged in the past to destroy it, has quailed before the insuperable practical difficulties which arise the moment the scheme of destruction is sought to be framed. |
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