LORD CROMER'S SPEECH.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 09, 11 January 1908, Page 12

LORD CROMER'S SPEECH.

Lord Cromer came into the field of domestic politics at the dinner of the Unionist Free Trade Club on the 21st November, when he delivered a powerful address on tho Imperial aspects of Froo Trade, and gave some impartial advice to both parties. It should have weight with those who Call themselves Imperialists that the most experienced and successful of our public servants abroad should testify thus eloquently to the part which Free Trade has played in our dealings with other countries. What is it, he asks, which has enabled us to maintain our political ascendency in so many parts of the world with so comparatively little friction and jealousy from our neighbours and rivals? It is, he answers without hesitation, the rule of perfect equality in trade which we have applied wherever we are able to control policy. Our neighbours at least know that, whereas other countries, when they annex territory, will close the U'ade door, or give their own traders such preference that others cannot compete with them,, we shall keep the door open and give equal access to all comefrs. This is not merely a matter of theory ; it saves us- in practice from the day-by-day friction in administration which' arises when the traders of other nations find themselves excluded by fiscal barriers. We claim nothing more for this policy than an enlightened self-interest, and we believe that it as good for our trade as for tho, trade of other countries. But from the Imperial point of view this enlightened self-interest has served us nncoinmonly well, and Lord Cromer declares positively from his own experience that it has helped enormously to secure our position and to avoid the difficulties with pther Powers which must have arisen if we had adopted &n exclusive policy. The Times retorts that the foreigner 'could not object to our adoption of a tariff such as he imposes himself, and least of all if it had tho effect which Lord Gromor assumes of 'damaging British trade. Formal objection would not bs possible, but in this controversy We have to think of practical effects. No foreign country has oversea possessions to be compared with those of Great Britain. None, therefore, has the same power of inflicting damage upon its neighbours. The retort, moieover, misses the point of the Free Trade argument. • The adoption of a tariff would, as Free Traders hold, be hurtful to all trade, British and foreign. The foreigner would have cause for resentment, and the Briton would gain no advantage. That is tho truth about most fiscal quarrels, and in our case the avoidance of such quarrels is greatly to be desired if we wish to secure peace and safety for our Empire without throwing burdens impossible to be^ borne upon the masses of the British people. Lord Cromer confined himself on Thursday to this one aspect of the argument, but he is, of course, a convinced Free Trader all along the line, and his advice to the UnionistrFarty is that they should put Tariff Reform on the shelf. That, we fear, is no more likely to bo accepted than his advice to the Liberal Party that they should abandon all noncontributory schemes of old age pensions. The tariff organisation in the Unionist Party is not so much political as commercial, and it will not be dissolved except on proof positive of its helplessness. As Lord George Hamilton said in a speech at the same meeting, promissory notes have been issued wholesale in the Unionist. Party, and the holders of them are not in the least likely to burn them or put them on the shelf while there is the slightest prospect of payment.— Westminster Gazette.