The Dominion. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1912. THE BRITISH UNIONISTS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1600, 18 November 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1912. THE BRITISH UNIONISTS.

The disgraceful uproar created in the House of Commons last week by members of the Unionist party is difficult to justify, but;if anything eould justify it, it would be the saving of Me. Asquith from a course from which he is now probably glad to have been Baved. In the first shock of defeat on the Banbury amendment he could see nothing for it but resignation or the establishment of a precedent which it is now tacitly admitted would have been injurious to sound Parliamentary Government. The disturbance and adjournment has given him time to arrange a plan whereby the Banbury amendment can be rejected without doing, violence to the usual Parliamentary practice. This/ is satisfactory enough so far as it goes, but at the same time it admits the right_ of the Government to resubmit at ones for a favourable vote any proposal which the Houso has rejected. . We are told to-day that the Liberals arc disappointed at the Prime Minister's acceptance of the Speaker's suggestion, which involves- the loss of some precious days. ' Of much more interest, however, than the actual position of the Home Rule Bill 'at the present time is the new position of the Unionist party in regard to the fiscal issue. Nothing could be clearer than the policy laid down by Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Bonak Lav/ at the remarkable gathering in the Albert Hall at the end of. last week. The firmness and boldness of their statements is due, of course, to their recognition of the now undoubted fact that the Government has lost the confidence of the nation and has nothing but ruin ahead of it Unless some new and unforeseeable set of. circumstances comes into being. It will be remembered that during the election campaign in 1910 Mr. Balfour declared his readiness, speaking as the leader of the Unionist party, to submit tariff reform to a referendum on the-party's, return to office. This declaration was hailed with delight by the Unionist Free-traders, who felt themselves at last free to vote against the ment without endangering- Free-' trade. But many things have happened since. then.. Mr. • Balfour Jias retired 'and the party's leaders' and best fighters are those to whom tariff reform appears always more and more the important thing. Lord Lansdoivse now states that if the Unionists win at the next election they, will be "free to undertake tariff reform and enter into reciprocal arrangements with the' Dominions without further reference to .the constituencies." But while the official Unionist position has thus changed since Mr. Balfour made his statement in 1910, the character of •the tariff reform movement, and the nature of tariff reform have changed too. There is also abundance of evidence that the feeling in favour of tariff reform has greatly increased throughout the country. The Unionists are no longer, fighting for i a naked and Unqualified policy of corn They are now prepared, Lord Lansdowne announces, to give a two-fold undertaking:. "first, to fix the precise limits of such taxes and not to exceed those limits without the people's further authorisation, and, secondly, that any revenue I from such taxes should be devoted to the alleviation of the workers' burdens." Thus would be made good the assurance that colonial reciprocity would not mean ari increase in the cost of living to the workers. The Unionists here meet the Radicals on their own ground. It is a fundamental economic truth that every tax od. capital-is prima facie a fetter upon the expansion of social s wealth and production. The Radicals tax landowners and workingmen, and justify themselves with the plea that the money so raised will be used for relieving the eoonomic pressure on the mass of the people. This is a fallacious idea, just as fallacious as the Unionist idea that the proceeds of corn duties can lie directly and actually made into a staff to help the worker over the stony road of existence. But the Radicals should be the last to complain that Lord Lansdowne is undertaking the impossible. fhere is positively not the smallest difference in principle between the Radical and_ Unionist policies of special taxation.- In each case the device is to commandeer some of the current wealth of the nation with the object of bettering the nation's lot. In each case there is the fallacy that the Government Departments can make better use of the citizen's money that the citizen can himself. For our part, we prefer to cling to laws of production and exchange, and to believe that the Radical and Unionist theories of taxation, if pushed to their full lengths,_ are equallv wrong. The qualifications which Lord Lansdowne has attached to the Unionists fiscal policy, will probably, leave unmoved a great many Unionist Free-traders. But it is highly probable that the bulk of these will be realising now that the drift of Lloyd-Georgism is so dangerous that the welfare of the nation demands the abandonment, of part of the doctrine of Free-trade. They find themselves confronted with the unpleasant position of having to choose between two evils, and they will be foolish if they do not choose the lessor. The Spectator, writing four months ago, urged the Unionists to renew Mr. Balfour's referendum pledge, on the ground that not to do so would be to suffer defeat again, and to lose not only tariff reform, but other things of far greater value and importance. The Unionists feel confident, however, that the tide is with them, and wo are bound to say that they are not without reason for thinking so. The situation has enormously altered einco 1903; there are far more im :

portant things for Unionist Freetraders to do than think about Frcctradc. '