The Struggle for Imperial Unity: Recollections & Experiences

by George T. Denison

The Westminster Gazette of the 21st May, the day before I went to Liverpool, had the following article:

Mr. Bryce stated the case against the bread tax with admirable point and force in a speech last night at Aberdeen. He dealt with its protective aspect, and the part it seemed destined to play in helping on an Imperial Zollverein, and had an excellent passage as to the effect of the tax on the very poor: he said:

And when you get lower still, when you approach that large section of our people—in many places 30 per cent. of the population—which lives on the verge of want, it becomes a crushing burden, which means reduced subsistence, frequent hunger, weakness of body, and susceptibility to disease. The poor man suffers not merely because his margin is so small that the least addition to price tells, but because he can only afford the simplest and cheapest kinds of food. Bread to him is not only an article of first necessity, but of last necessity, etc.

The comment, “He dealt with its protective aspect and the part it seemed destined to play in helping on an Imperial Zollverein,” shows the alarm in the Liberal ranks. One of the speakers at the Liverpool meeting, who objected to my arguments, spoke of the marvellous prosperity of Great Britain, all due, as he said, to Free Trade. In my reply I used with great effect this extract from Mr. Bryce’s speech, and said that if about 8d. per head for a whole year meant to 30 per cent. of the population “a crushing burden, which means reduced subsistence, frequent hunger, weakness of body, susceptibility to disease,” I could not see that it could be called a prosperous country. I said I do not believe that gentleman ever saw a prosperous country. Let him come to the protectionist United States of America, or to protectionist Canada, and he will see countries where there is hardly a soul who does not spend at least 8d. a week on pleasure or amusement. This was apparently an unanswerable retort. I found this paragraph of Mr. Bryce’s very useful on more occasions than one.

I was told some five months after I had returned home, by one of the newspaper men who visited Canada at that time, that he had heard, on undoubted authority, that Mr. Joseph Chamberlain had privately asked Sir Alfred Jones to get up a meeting, and invite me to go down and address it. The result must have been satisfactory, for the meeting was much more successful than I had any hope for. I think Mr. Chamberlain’s part leaked out and still further alarmed the Liberals, and still more aided me.

The Liverpool papers gave good reports of the meeting, and the editorial comments of two of them were not unfavourable, while one was opposed to me. The Courier of the 24th May said:

Now Canada proposes—and no doubt she will not be alone—that the Empire as a whole accept this challenge. Colonel Denison suggests that a five per cent. tariff should be laid on foreign goods in every part of the Empire, and that the money be ear-marked for the defence. It is, of course, premature to discuss details, but the final words of the Canadian Imperialist deserve the most earnest attention. He shows that Mr. Chamberlain has not misread the signs in saying that an opportunity of closer union is about to be offered, and a chance given, perhaps once for all, of keeping British trade in British hands. If the occasion should be rejected, fair warning is given that the elements of disintegration will inevitably begin to operate among the colonies thus flouted, disappointed, and rebuffed. But we are asked to remember what Mr. Bryce says as to the percentage of the population always on the verge of want, and to whom an important duty would be fatal. They have not this terrible dead-weight in Canada, and neither have they anything of the sort in the United States. Is it not rational to suggest that this vast proportion of the population, ever ready to be submerged, is a result not of dear commodities, but of restricted production. On the score of mere cheapness there is assuredly little to complain of. The biggest and cheapest loaf costs something, and its price has to be earned. The question is, Are we to face this commercial struggle alone and unarmed, or are we to unite with the daughter nations in securing a not dubious victory?

On the 13th May, ten days before the meeting in Liverpool, I was dining at Lord Lansdowne’s at a dinner given to Count Matsugata, formerly Prime Minister of Japan. The Premier and five Cabinet Ministers, Lord Roberts, the Duke of Abercorn, and several others were present. I was seated between Mr. Chamberlain and Lord George Hamilton. I took advantage of the opportunity to discuss our policy with Mr. Chamberlain, and pressed it as earnestly as I could put it, and we had a long conversation. I pleaded with him to help us, that I was still afraid of reciprocity with the United States, and that I felt we were drifting, drifting, and that every year made it worse. Whether my remarks had any weight on him or not I cannot say. I think he had long been privately on our side, but anyway, three days after he made a speech in Birmingham, which was the most hopeful thing that had happened in all our struggle. In that speech he said:

“The position of this country is not one without anxiety to statesmen and careful observers. Political jealousy, commercial rivalry, more serious than anything we have yet had, the pressure of hostile tariffs, the pressure of bounties, the pressure of subsidies, it is all becoming more weighty and more apparent.