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CHAPTER XII 



The Incubus of Taxation — Fiscal and Poor 

 Law Reforms 



THERE are speakers and writers in abundance on 

 all social and economic questions in Parliament 

 and out of it; there are those who declare that free 

 trade is the panacea for the troubles which have over- 

 taken us, and those who affirm that in fiscal reform 

 will be found the solution of the problem. Political 

 parties have made free trade and fiscal reform their 

 war cries, and one of them has raised the cheap loaf 

 as their battle standard. 



Part of the Press supports one of these factions and 

 part of it the other ; bitter controversy often rages round 

 the question, and public feeling is influenced sometimes 

 this way and sometimes that by these warriors of a 

 wordy warfare. 



More fierce controversialists throw themselves boldly 

 into the arena of this bloodless conflict year by year and 

 so the game goes merrily on, to the huge amusement of 

 all foreign nations and to the undoing of our own people. 



Now we may lay down this one broad cardinal fact as 

 a sure basis to work upon : — Not by such means will the 

 problem be solved ; the battle won. 



It is obvious, from the bitter experience of the past, 

 that what has been misnamed free trade has ignomini- 



