tax can be got from the people by election. It can be done at once.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer can come down to the House and the
tax can be repealed if there is a sufficiently fierce demand for it.

But these food taxes by which you seek to bind the Empire
together--these curious links of Empire which you are asking us to
forge laboriously now--would be irremovable, and upon them would
descend the whole weight and burden of popular anger in time of
suffering. They would be irremovable, because fixed by treaty with
self-governing Dominions scattered about all over the world, and in
return for those duties we should have received concessions in
Colonial tariffs on the basis of which their industries would have
grown up tier upon tier through a long period of time.

Although, no doubt, another Conference hastily assembled might be able
to break the shackle which would fasten us--to break that fiscal bond
which would join us together and release us from the obligation--that
might take a great deal of time. Many Parliaments and Governments
would have to be consulted, and all the difficulties of distance would
intervene to prevent a speedy relief from that deadlock. If the day
comes in this country when you have a stern demand--and an
overwhelming demand of a Parliament, backed by a vast population
suffering acutely from high food-prices--that the taxes should be
removed, and on the other hand the Minister in charge has to get up
and say that he will bring the matter before the next Colonial
Conference two years hence, or that he will address the
representatives of the Australian or Canadian Governments through the
agency of the Colonial Office, and that in the meanwhile nothing can
be done--when you have produced that situation, then, indeed, you will
have exposed the fabric of the British Empire to a wrench and a shock