Controversy on Mr. Chamberlain's proposals has grown warmer than ever this week. It is all very well for Mr. Balfour to talk about enquiry and an open mind. Mr. Chamberlain has declared that so far as he is concerned a tariff scheme giving preference to the Colonies and involving a tax on food imported from foreign countries is to be the issue on which the next General Election is to be fought. Of course no party will admit that it desires to shirk enquiry; but the Duke of Devonshire has told us that the inquiry is not to be into facts, for the facts are already known, but into the bearing of those facts upon the existing political and commercial conditions of the Empire. The so-called enquiry is therefore to be rather an argumentative battle between the supporters and the opponents of Chamberlain's ideal than ary sen already received good deal of more or port from Chambers of ribers of Agriculture, and Where the support is definite, however, it is nearly always based upon the injury done to particular hone factures by free imports from Pro-ctionist countries. [nother words it the subordinate question, of retaliation that has been taken up warm; lo the idea of taxing food for the benefit of the Colonies obtains very little active. support. Thus the question is resolving Hiself more and more into the likeness of that which was so hotly contested thirty It in' effect, a battle Free Traders on the' one hand and Fair Traders or Protectionists on the other.
OM
On Friday st, it may be remembered, Mr. Chamberlain' was fied at a Constitn: tional Club Inucheon presided over Ds Full reports of the Colonial Secretary's speech had not been published when L irate bist: am! from if appears that by far the most important feature of the speech was the practical abandonment of the proposal to use the money obtained from the food taxes for the institution of old age pensions. Mr. Chamberlain declared that old age pensions were not an essential part of his scheme, and that in place of pensions the working man might be compensated for dearer bread and meat by a reduction of the duties on tea, sugar, and tobacco. No doubt Mr. Chamberlain was impelled to this step by the outery against " bribing" the working man to accept his scheme; but if there was little hope before of indueing the working man to vote for a tax on food there is surely still less hope now.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.