The Dominion. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1912. THE POSITION OF TARIFF REFORM.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1627, 19 December 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1912. THE POSITION OF TARIFF REFORM.

The remarkable speech of Mn. Bonae Law at Ashton-undcr-Lyne makes Tariff Reform something far greater than a local British issue. Hitherto the fiscal controversy in Britain has been in all essentials a domestic controversy: it concerned only Britain whether Free-trade should be abandoned or not as the British fiscal policy. Through all its phases the question has kept this character. Even the momentous speeches of Lord Lansdowne and .Me. Bonmi Law on November. H, at the Albert Hall, when they tolc! tho nation that on coming into power the Unionist party would not tie itself up through a referendum pledge, left the issue, so far as it is political, still only a i British political issue. On that occasion (the mail of yesterday chances to have brought the full text of their speeches), the Unionist leaders modified the Tariff Reform, policy only •by giving an undertaking, first to specify precisely before the next election the amount of the taxation they will propose, and, second, to use the new revenue, not as ordinary revenue, but for the purpose of alleviating . the burdensj of the working classes. Now, howoyor, the whole situation is transformed. We may say at once that we think the new Unionist policy, as outlined by Mk. . Bonae Law this week, is rich in possibilities of danger to the Empire. After the undertaking (which everybody knows will be scrupulously observed by the Unionists) that no initial tariff, and thereafter no tariff extension, will be enacted without a clear mandate- from a consulted nation, 'Free-traders will have uo reason to fear that the Tariff Reformers will establish the evil of Protection. Mn. Bonar Law and Lord Lansdovne have* submitted themselves to the most: ample checks.

But it will be a most dangerous thing to bring the Dominions into responsible places in the controversy, and that is what Mr. Bonar Law proposes to do. The salient passage in the cabled' summary of his speech must be quoted: —

If the Unionists were entrusted with power, they did not intend to impose food taxes without first convening a colonial conference to consider the whole question of preferential trade. The question of food duties would only arise after deliberation at the conference. That was why he objected to submit the proposals to a referendum.

It may safely be inferred that the full text of the speech will show that Mr. Bonar Law's reason for considering that the conference puts a local British referendum out of court is that he has decided that tho British tariff is not a purely British matter. This alono gives a moaning to the last sentence in the quoted passage—and it is a terrific meaning. That this interpretation is placed upon the passage by the great London dailies of both sides is clear .enough from the few words of their comments which we have received by cable. The Times, the Ohroniclc, the Manchester Guardian, and tho. Pall Mall . Gazette all admit that the proposal is that the Dominions shall settle the fiscal policy of the United Kingdom. \Ve can think of nothing more likely to dissolve the cement of Empire than tho feeling that the Mother Country has passed under tho yoke of her children. Had Mr. Bonar Law said only that a tariff would not be imposed without the approval of an Imperial Conference, he would only have been reaffirming the , principle implied at all the recent Conferences. But he is doing far more than that. Having brought Tariff Reform into the_ position of; a strong and unsinkable electoral issue, he has suddenly _ made its reality as a political thing depend upon tho voice of tho Dominions. No attention need be paid to the party trickery of the Chronicle's declaration that Mr. Bonar Law is morely attempting to shift to the Dominions' shoulders the "odium" of food-taxes. But The' Times is wise in protesting against shifting the onus of food-taxation on to tho overseas Empire. The Dominions will not accept the responsibility. They may or may not feel-glad if a tariff_ in their favour is erected in Britain, but they know too much of the clanger of mutual interferences to take any actual responsibility for the laws that the British Parliament enacts for the British people. They will bo glad to send _ thoir representatives to an Imperial Conference to discuss Tariff Reform with a Unionist British j Government • as freely as possible, as warmly as possible. But that discussion must have no contingencies. Tariff Reform must not come, or be capable of being represented as coming, because of an overseas mandate. _ It must come only when, by their free judgment, the British people, order ifc._ The London Times has taken an imrne> riiato stand on the rpek of wisdom

imil safely in iilllniiliig llml "If l.hc tuxiilioii IB imdciilrablo ima purely (liiiiicßl)it) rafiiriiii Uiwi if/ in nob doiiii'iililii at all." Ma. JtowAH I/AW witi'iilvm Tariff for llriliiin ait ii iiiMiHiiro viUl 1.0 Hit) Empire, ami muro lliii-ri ii tl(imt!«li(! ( iiifliio. JI; nmy bo nil Ibis, bill ov<:n if it in, ii in all lNfiiui for ooLltainctil' by the Jlriliiidi nation mid by nobody elw;.