proverbial readiness of an Irishman. But such an answer, though it might provoke a smile even on earnest faces, was of course no solution of the difficulty in which the colony found herself through the failure of the alluvial diggings. After the manner of colonists the entire fiscal policy of Victoria was changed with amazing rapidity. A Cabinet composed mainly of avowed Free-traders introduced the first Protectionist tariff, and since then the tendency has been to increase rather than diminish the duties.[1] No Protectionist can possibly put the case fairer than does Sir Charles Dilke in the chapter of his admirable work to which I have already alluded: —
"The question of Protection," he says, "is bound up with the wider one of whether we are to love our fellow-subjects, our race, or the world at large; whether we are to pursue our country's good at the expense of other nations?" The working men of Collingwood, as soon as they beheld the parochial soup-kitchen, at once decided in favour of the local and patriotic, rather than the cosmopolitan theory
- ↑ Victoria, having only a limited area, is now suffering from "over-production" and wants outside markets; hence, say her critics, her anxiety to "federate" with the other colonies.
