CHAMBERLAIN TRADITION

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 137, 11 June 1936, Page 8

CHAMBERLAIN TRADITION

Preparations for the celebration of the birth of Joseph Chamberlain challenge comparisons between the Empire of Victorian days and the Empire of Edward VIII. Joseph Chamberlain had a policy for the self-governing portions of the oversea Empire and a policy for the Crown Colonies. For the former he proposed reciprocal tariff arrangements, and his effort broke on the rock of United Kingdom Free Trade, which triumphed, with Liberalism* in 1905-06. The fact that in the post-War period both Liberalism and Free Trade have fallen on evil days is sometimes regarded as realising the "trend" of Chamberlain policy; but Chamberlain policy, had it been realised 100 per cent, in 1900-06, would have been much more than a trend. InterImperial reciprocal tariffisifl on Chamberlain lines would have involved restrictions on the increasing range of manufacturing in the selfgoverning colonies, now Dominions; and the fact that Free Trade was strong enough in the United Kingdom in 1905-06 to forbid it, tends to obscure the probability that colonies like Australia (federated at the beginning of the century) would not have adhered to a compact limiting their manufacturing. At any rate, the free industrial expansion in the 'oversea units since 1900, and latterly the Statute of Westminster, do not lend support to the id,ea that the Empire could have been fitted into a cast-iron arrangement based—even loosely—on the idea of a manufacturing centre (the United Kingdom) to which the oversea units should be mainly suppliers of raw material. The ideal as well as the material basis of such an adjustment is not admitted either oversea or at Home. Also, it would have been difficult to implement without bilateral treaties between the United Kingdom and each Dominion. And the principle of bilateral treaties still hangs in the balance, even today.