imposing a tax on bread and meat except our inability to follow the
drift of our own arguments.

I have referred to preference, but there is another proposal. The
right hon. gentleman the Member for St. George's, Hanover Square, put
forward a proposal earlier in the year, and it was renewed in a
slightly different form by Mr. Deakin[5] at the Conference. The
proposal was to impose a 1 per cent. _ad valorem_ surtax on all
foreign merchandise coming into the ports of the British Empire. That
is the proposal which has been put forward as the least objectionable
form of the preferential proposals, and it has been said of it that it
was the least objectionable because it gave no loophole for the
corruption which may spring up in the wake of the other proposals.

Let me ask the House to examine this proposal for a moment. Has any
serious, civilised Government--I ask for information--ever been to the
pains and trouble of erecting round their coasts a tariff, with all
its complications, with the need of exacting certificates of origin on
every class of goods, with the need of demanding strict assessment of
all commodities brought to their shores--has any nation ever erected
the vast and complicated network which would be involved in such a
duty, simply for the paltry purpose of imposing a duty of 1 per cent.?
I say there is no argument and no reason for such a course, and the
only argument which could justify it is the argument used by Dr.
Smartt at the Colonial Conference when he said (page 514 of the Blue
Book), "The foreigner pays, and we do not." Mr. Deakin felt the force
of the objection which would be entertained in this country to
introducing such a tariff as the right hon. gentleman has proposed,
simply for fiscal purposes, and he proceeded to say that Great
Britain, if she was a party to such a bargain, should be permitted to