The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 1914. TARIFF REFORM.

Southland Times, Issue 17599, 11 March 1914, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 1914. TARIFF REFORM.

The pronouncement on Tariff Reform recently made by Mr Bonar Law through the medium of one of the chief Imperialistic periodicals in England may safely be regarded as official and authentic. The Unionist leader has evidently made up his mind to adhere to the tariff reform policy in its final shape—protection without food taxes. So far from imposing further taxation on the country's imported food, the Unionists would remit some of the existing duties. It must be remembered that even under free trade, which is so strongly upheld by the Eiberals, the people's food is still heavily taxed in England. For excluding the taxes on alcoholic liquors and tobacco something like twelve millions a year is drawn from duties on tea, dried fruits, sugar, and other necessaries of life. However, while the “Free Food"’ cry raised by the Cobdenites is entirely misleading, it is clear that the remission of these duties would mean a heavy loss to the Exchequer, and the Unionists have to suggest some way of making up the deficit. For this purpose they would levy an import duty of ten per cent, on foreign goods; and they contend that this fiscal system can be justified on strict free trade lines, on the principle of taxation for revenue. This way of putting the case is clearly meant to conciliate wavering Cob-

denites, but it is not likely to delude anybody who considers the position intelligently. Tariff Reform' in the shape that it has now taken is really Protection not very carefully disguised. Of- course, it is none the worse for that, for England would gain immensely by employing a protective tariff to secure the Home market at least in part for her own producers, and to threaten her rivals with retaliation if they insist on excluding her x>roducts. Tariff Reform In the original shape proposed by Mr was far more logical and scientific than the policy that Mr Bonar Law now upholds. Food taxes do not necessarily mean high food prices: there is ample evidence to support the argument that if once the British food market were secured for the colonial producers, • competition between India and South Africa and Canada and Australasia would result in the production of a limitless supply of low-priced food for the English people, while promoting the prosperity and the solidarity of the whole Empire. Of course, Mr Bonar Law clings to Imperial Preference as a factor in Tariff Reform, but none of the Unionists have been able to show how much preference could be of use without food taxes; and so Tariff Reform as now expounded by Mr Bonar Law has been shorn of nearly all its significance and value. Mr Chamberlain’s crusade has failed, and the failure has been due not to any defect in his fiscal policy, but to the lack of moral courage displayed by his followers, w r ho, after his retirement, had, not the strength of w r ill to face the groundless and meaningless clamour raised by the Cobdenites against food taxes.