THE FISCAL QUESTION 137 



a feverish desire in the business world to get by legislation 

 an advantage over other trades, they could present such a 

 picture as would save England from following him. . . . 

 You must win, or civilisation takes a backward step. No 

 body of legislators, from Parliament down to city councils 

 and boards of select-men in towns, can be safely trusted to 

 use the powers of taxation for any other purpose than that 

 of merely raising money to cover the expenses of govern- 

 ment. Throughout the political structure in America 

 to-day, shrewd people everywhere struggle to legislate in 

 some way money out of their neighbours' pockets into 

 their own, and this feverish desire is the real source of the 

 municipal corruption which pervades all our civic organisa- 

 tions. . . . Protection in America is the mother of cor- 

 ruption ; and to fight Chamberlain is simply to fight for 

 common honesty." 



These are strong words, but I doubt if it is possible to 

 say that they pass beyond the truth. That the motives of 

 Mr. Chamberlain, and of those who have supported him, 

 may be as pure as his effort has been strenuous, I do not 

 doubt. Great efforts for great causes are hardly ever 

 inspired or sustained by selfish motives. But neither 

 ardent patriotism nor the generous dream of a greater 

 empire has saved him from committing himself and his 

 followers to a political method which, if applied, would put 

 a strain upon the private morality and the political honour 

 of British citizens and upon the rectitude of their repre- 

 sentatives, from which we have all inherited the right to 

 be free. 



But the prospects are not really alarming. We shall not 

 barter our political purity for the promised millions. Just 

 for the moment, the mind of the multitude may be con- 



