THE FISCAL QUESTION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 5, 7 January 1904, Page 4

THE FISCAL QUESTION

TV Loudon Times- puts Wie fiscal position very tersely :—"Free trade | exists between this country and another, in respect oi a given arlicle which l.»l h can produce, only when tin- Customs duties iiii|>osi.(l upon Unit iiitUlf in tin- two countries ire ccruul. For it is obvious Unit, so long us they uiv equal, the only udvaintngc winch either country can gain is that due to greater elliciency irnid economy in production. The Weill free trade, in which there are no duties in either country,' Is only a special case under live general • "If. Tire essence of the. thing is equality of impost, and it is 1111 accident whether the equality is nothing' equal to n'oltving, or ten e<pial to ten, or twenty equal to twenty. Ideal lice trade does not exist so long as nations raise revenue by indirect taxntion. Therefore, all we can do Is to secure equality of impost by making our Customs dues equal to tile cor--1 (.spending dues levied upon our exports. At present we maintain the farce of playing champion of a nonexistent equality. That is not free trade, but merely inverted protection. Our refusal to enforce real equality of impost operates as protection to the foreigner. Lord Hugh Cecil appeals to have got hold of tjhis truth, and thus to have got far afieud of the profession. If he would o'nly go on and work'it out with the aid of investigation of actual problems and careful avoidance of abstract formulas, he would not be long in discovering tha.t the antithesis between Mr Balfour's policy aiind Mr Chamberlain's is very much less sharp than he now thinks it. The difference is one of degree only, so far as the amplication of principle is concerned. It is also one of policy as far as Imperial conceptions are concerned. Mr Balfour's is s»und free trade limited to the needs of the United Kingdom. Mr Chamberlain's is equally .sound free truide extended to embrace the needs awl interests of the Empire. Here, again, we are forced to the conclusion that real Inipurialism is not co-extVnsive with the profession erf it, and that at the back of all economic objections to Mr C'hiai*erlum's schemes lies n profound distrust of Imperial consolidation ivnid a lingering remnant of Hie olid antagonism to the colonies.