The Economic Aspects of International Exchange. 19 



that neither Mr. Chamberlain nor any of his followers had yet 

 put pencil to paper to let them know exactly what was meant by 

 it ; it was a thing they could not touch, it eluded them in every 

 direction, and every one was in the habit of referring to it merely 

 as a general tariff. No one had yet put down a list of the com 

 modifies that it was proposed to tax. If they wanted to convert 

 the country to a new state of things they should let the people 

 know exactly what the tariff was to be upon — which articles were 

 to be barred and which not. In his opinion the bedrock of 

 taxation should be for revenue purposes and not for the protection 

 of any particular trade or industry. This should not be a party 

 question, but unfortunately it seemed to be drifting into that. At 

 the present time they had a so-called Unionist party in the 

 country, and for good or ill that party appeared to have taken 

 tariff reform almost entirely under its own control. It was a 

 curious thing that the Unionist members of Parliament for the 

 North of Ireland, with two exceptions — Mr. Wolff and Mr. Clark 

 — were ardent advocates of tariff reform. If they wanted tariff 

 reform the best and quickest way for them to get it was to become 

 Home Rulers. The Home Rule party in Ireland would certainly 

 give them protection in its most drastic form. With Home Rule 

 three-fourths of their representatives would be either farmers or 

 farmers' nominees. Everything they needed for manufactures 

 would then be taxed to such an extent that manufactures would 

 at once die in this country. Foreign countries were not the 

 paradises that Mr. Elliott had tried to make out. The standard 

 of comfort in this country was wonderfully high, and if the 

 working men would not spend so much on football matches, 

 boxing competitions, tobacco, and so on they would not have 

 much cause to grumble. 



Mr. J. R. Fisher, B.L., editor of the " Northern Whig," 

 said he thought they could congratulate themselves on at least 

 one point, and that was that they could discuss this matter in an 

 Irish atmosphere, outside the bounds of party politics. He had 

 no intention of following up Mr. Elliott or Mr. Sinclair in what 

 they had said, but he should like to speak, apart from the business 



