A BRIEF EXAMINATION OF FllEE-TllADE PKINCirLES 297 



There is also that long list of food-stufls such as cocoa, 

 coflue, tea, milk, aud milk pioducLions, confectionery of all 

 kinds, fruits dried, jams and marmalade; all of which pay 

 duty before reacliing the people. A Free-trade Government 

 may call these articles — luxuries, but the people know that 

 they are necessary foods and no more luxuries than bread is 

 a luxury ; nevertheless. Free-trade Administrations appear to 

 have no more qualms of conscience about drawing revenues 

 from such sources than an anti-Fiee-trade Government would 

 have. 



Fkee-tkade " Kecipkocity " 



The present Government, which calls itself Liberal — but 

 which its political opponents dub Radical — has in the New 

 Tarilf Convention with America entered into an arrangement 

 which is as diametrically opposed to the principles of Free-trade 

 as light is to darkness. The United States, wishing to secure 

 still greater advantages for her goods, and freer facilities for 

 her commercial travellers, says to us : " You give us free entry 

 for our samples of dutiable imports, and we will give you 

 something in return. You profess to be a free-trading nation, 

 ncvertlicless, you arc just as much open to a bargain, or in 

 other words, to those principles of reciprocity under wliich the 

 protected countries of the world formulate their systems of 

 tarifCs, as other nations are. You already draw £35,000,000 

 annually from your import duties on goods of various kinds, 

 many of them, sucli as sugar, for exam})le, being necessaries 

 of life and in daily use by the people ; while we know from 

 past experience you would just as readily tax other articles of 

 common consumption if you wanted money for war purposes, 

 or for other urgent State needs." 



Free-trade apologists will, no doubt, by many a specious 

 argument, attempt to explain away this extraordinary move- 

 ment of the Government in favour of Eeciprocity, this leaning 

 towards the very principles which their j'olitical opponents, 

 the Unionist Tariff-reformers, so strenuously advocate, but, 

 however much they may protest, this Free-trade principle has 

 been clearly, unmistakably,. and formally surrendered by their 

 own Government in this Tarilf Convention with the United 

 States, and the matter is now uiifait accoiivpli. 



It is, however, contended by Free-traders that although 

 they have all the desire to abolish import duties on food-stuffs, 

 they are not in a position to do so, because it is necessary to 

 maintain them for revenue purposes, but this, surely, is not a 

 defensible position. If it be really right and proper in the 



