As a set-off against the Mid Devon result the ex-Colonial Secretary may congratulate himself on having won over a distinguished recruit from the Liberal Party. Sir E. J. Reed has declared himself in favour of "Tariff Reform." He is not yet a " whole-hogger," it is true; but in a letter which he has just addressed to his constituents announcing that he will not offer himself for re-election' for Cardiff ho betrays strong sympathy. with Mr. Chamberlain's proposals. the principal subject of discussion in cal circles is, however, the position of The Duke of Devonshire. He is still the President of the Liberal Unionist organise tion; he has advised electors to vote for a Free Trade Liberal in preference to a can-date who supports Mr. Chamberlain; and it is at the same time abundantly clear that although he may still have a fairly sobstantial following, yet the great majority of the Liberal Unionists are on the side of Mr. Chamberlain, In these circumstances a split-up of the Liberal Unionist, organisation seems inevitable. My own opinion is that Before the next General Election takes place there will be_as close an alliance betwee the Unionist Freetraders and the Liberals as. there was between the Conservatives and the Liberal Unionists in 1886. The "Tariff Reformers" are doing their best to persuade the Liberal Unionist Freetraders that Home Rule is still to be feared and that therefore it is their duty to cling to the Conservative alliance, even though Free Trade be imperilled, but there is an obvious, answer for that plea. We still have a House of Yards. We may rest perfectly assure? the Upper House will never allow a Home Rule Bill to pass until there is a clear Gnglish majority in its favour.
The Year's Trade.
Tt must be acknowledged that the Board of Trade is a little unkind to Mr. Chamberlain. Its statistics never support his conteation that "one-sided Free Trade" and "damping" are carrying us along the road mis, This moming the newspapers publish the Board of Trade summary of our trade during the whole of last year, and it. shows that while our imports were th highest on record in point. of value, our exports also were the jest on record in point of bulk and nearly the highest im Point of value, being exceeded only by 1900, when they amounted to £291,100,000 against 290,900,000 last year. Moreover, if we adopt the 'Tariff-reformers' principle of excluding coal exports as being in the nature of an export of capital, the comparison is even more favourable, for our exports of coal last. year amounted to only 27,000,000 against $36,000,000 in 1900. It is noteworthy, too, that the improvement mainly' in manufactured goods, in which 1903 was 27,000,000 ahead of 1902 and £11,000,000 ahead of 1901.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.