tariff. To this it may be directly replied: That at least half the value of all manufactured goods is represented by the remuneration of labour; that wages in this country follow prices; that the strength of the trades union organizations makes it quite certain that employers will be compelled to divide fairly with their workmen any larger profits which increased command of the home market may give them; that the power of the trusts established in America upon the basis of a practically prohibitory 70 per cent. tariff cannot be repeated in any way in this country under an average 10 per cent. tariff, checking foreign competition, but by no means high enough to exclude it; and, finally, that the control of the Legislature by the people in this country is direct and absolute to a degree unknown in America; and an abuse of the tariff by capital would mean an end of the tariff, which, when adopted, will only be retained if democracy finds by actual experiment that it prospers better than it did before. And all the argument of orthodox importers enormously exaggerates the nature of the change which Mr. Chamberlain actually proposes. The economic difference between simple free imports and an average 10 per cent. tariff is less in degree than the difference between that scale and the average German rates of duty upon foreign manufactures. Mr. Chamberlain's policy would be nearer free imports than to any important continental system of Protection, and in this respect it promises well as representing the final application to practical economics of that distinctive spirit of constructive compromise in which all the greatest measures of English statesmanship have been achieved.
XVIII.
There is no alternative in trade. There is none in policy. Under the present system the relative decay of our commerce must begin at no very distant date to sap the foundations of our power. We shall remain without means to negotiate for reciprocity with our foreign competitors, or to check the steady decline of our trade
