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ROBERT LOWE'S PROPHECY
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and sell what they have to sell, and substitute the principle of restriction and exclusion, of trade jealousy and special privilege, and the ruin of the Empire will have begun. The policy of the open market is a policy from which we cannot afford to budge a single hair's-breadth. I hold, then, that it is the duty of every true Imperialist to combat with all his heart and all his strength the proposal to revolutionize our policy of Free Trade and to adopt the policy of Preference and Protection. He must insist on falsifying the prophecy of Robert Lowe, who in 1867 said: 'In the time of the American Revolution the Colonies separated from England because she insisted on taxing them. What I apprehend as likely to happen now is that England will separate from her Colonies because they insist on taxing her.' God forbid! We will neither tax our Colonies for our benefit nor tax ourselves in the vain hope of benefiting them thereby. What we will do is to insist that the tie which unites us in one mighty State shall be the tie of freedom—freedom political and commercial. That is the motto which we must blazon on the banner of Empire. In that sign we shall conquer.