With which Is Inoorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1930. TARIFFS AND TACTICS.

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18169, 6 November 1930, Page 6

With which Is Inoorporated The Waikato Argus. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1930. TARIFFS AND TACTICS.

Mr Neville Chamberlain delivered a speech on Monday promising a stiff tariff, on the Canadian model, as the first act of a new Conservative Government. The tone of his speech would not have been very different if the results of the next election were already known and Mr Baldwin were at this moment making up his Cabinet. Mr Chamberlain is evidently quite sure that the Conservatives are coming back to office, and that at no distant date. Possibly he Is right. He certainly has grounds for hope- The chief of those grounds is the appalling and still growing number of men out of work in the United Kingdom. The disaster of unemployment would, if elections were held now, in all probability wreck the British Government. It is that which makes the Conservatives so bold; they think they can put through measures which at all ordinary times the country would probably reject. Thus all the safeguards of Safeguarding are to be thrown to the winds, all the inquiries and publicity which, under the old system, at least gave some feeble protection against graft and exploitation will disappear, and Britain is to have within “ the first few months ” of Conservative government what Mr Chamberlain calls an emergency tariff —the meaning of which is, apparently, not a tariff due to an emergency so much as a tariff passed in the shortest possible time, with no safeguards against log-rolling and with no pretence at scientific selection or grading. The tariff,' says Mr Chamberlain, “ may be somewhat of a rough-and-ready kind.” There is no reason to doubt it. The only surprising thing is the candour of the confession. At all other times Conservatives have known that if they hankeied after protection they must let the country know'in advance exactly how far they meant to carry it along that road. Now they think they can count upon being given an entirely free hand. Under the*' spur of unemployment a large mass of the electorate will, they think, vote Conservative, or at least anti-Labour, whatever policies are put forward. On Mr Chamberlain’s own assumptions this is a perfectly sound deduction. The assumptions were that the Government continue to be without an unemployment policy, and that the Liberals, in order not to be associated withtheir failure, would unite with the Conservatives in turning the Government out. In the latter Mr Chamberlain was disappointed as the Liberals have decided to abstain from voting. At the same time it seems clear that the Government cannot count upon firm Liberal support much longer unless it does discover an unemployment policy in which the Liberals can co-operate. Hence the importance of the discussions which are going on behind the scenes between Mr Lloyd George and Mr MacDonald. We do not hear very much about them. Consequently the outside public has no means of judging whether Mr Chamberlain’s assumptions are well or ill founded. Mr Chamberlain, indeed, seems to have been speaking without reference to these discussions. But they are highly germane to his argument. For if Mr Lloyd George' and Mr MacDonald can agree upon an unemployment policy there is no reason why the Government should not stay in office for at least another two years. Indeed,: two years would be the shortest period of time in which to test the value of any thoroughgoing unemployment policy. If by the end of the two years trade and employment had recovered (as they very well might) the country might be no longer in the mood, on which Mr Chamberlain relies, to plunge into full-blooded protection. The Conservatives are in a great hurry. They cannot conceal their impatience to be at work on a tariff of some kind. They are to be restrained by no sort of restriction or pre-election pledge; they cannot even endure the thought that Mr Graham s tariff truce, in the improbable event of its becoming effective, should restrain them for even the few months which is the maximum period which could be required for its legitimate denunciation. But all this rather indecent haste is on the assumption that the Government is shortly to be turned out of the office by the Liberals—a point upon which Mr Chamberlain is not in a position to speak with authority. There can be no doubt that it would fit in best with Liberal interests and desires to co-operate with the Government as long as possible and the publication of the Liberal Party’s proposals for dealing with unemployment might be taken as a gesture 'or this end. Neither party has anything in the world to gain by allowing a premature election. Go-operation could be secured on the basis, of an agreed programme, including a measure of electoral’ reform. The! best guarantee of continuing, co-operation would undoubtedly be an agreed unemployment policy, and if’-tliis could be-found dis-agreement-on minor matters would be less likely to bring the Government down. For unemployment is r the dominating issue .'of British domestic politics, and is likely to remain so. Moreover, it is being unfairly used by the Conservative press and party leaders, who must know that, if not the whole, at any rate by far the greater part of the increase in unemployment is due to causes beyond the control of any British Government. Sometimes

the admission is grudgingly made that world causes have something to do

with it, more rarely that unemployment is as bad in protectionist countries as It is in Britain, but such admissions are nevertheless always followed by the imputation of responsibility to the Government. This is not fair. If trade should mend while the present Government is in power no doubt the Government will, in the same way, olalm the credit for an improvement which may equally well be due to world causes. It may not be complimentary to suggest that party leaders are capable of adapting themselves to tactical considerations of this kind. Nevertheless, if it should occur to Mr MacDonald that his party would stand a much better chance at the next election if employment were showing signs of recovery and not of continued decline, he could not do better than come to an arrangement with the Liberals which would secure their support in a considered and radical unemployment policy.