On the 11th June I addressed the Chamber of Commerce of Bristol, and my meeting attracted considerable attention from the local newspapers. The Western Daily Press had on the morning of the meeting a long and quite friendly article, bespeaking earnest attention to my address, even if I laid down “lines of fiscal policy along which the majority may be reluctant to travel.” The Bristol Mercury gave a very full report of the meeting and of the speeches, and had a long article discussing the proposition from a strong Free Trade and hostile point of view.
On the 10th June in the House of Commons my work caused a passing notice. After I had left Canada the Executive Committee of the League in Canada published in pamphlet form a report of the Annual Meeting of the League in Canada containing my Presidential Address in moving the adoption of the Annual Report, and they had an extra quantity printed and sent a copy to every member of the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
On the discussion of the Finance Bill in the House of Commons on the 10th June, Sir W. Harcourt, after saying that the Colonies could only join the mother country on the basis of protection, went on to say: “I received the other day the Manifesto of the Canadian Imperial League, which seems to be a very authoritative document, containing, as it does, the principal names in Canada, and which I would ask the committee to examine in relation to the Budget. The first article of the constitution of the League is thus laid down: ‘To advocate a trade policy between Great Britain and her Colonies, by means of which discrimination in the exchange of natural and manufactured products will be made in favour of one another and against foreign countries.’ Of course, that is the only basis on which the Colonies will deal with us. If they give up their preferential duties against us, they will expect us to institute preferential duties against other nations. In the annual report of the Executive Committee of this British Imperial League, dated February 1, 1902—months before the introduction of the present Budget—we learn that at its meeting, which was held at Toronto, the following resolution was adopted: ‘Resolved, that this meeting is of opinion that a special duty of 5 to 10 per cent. should be imposed at every port in the British possessions on all foreign goods’; and we are told, further, that the proceeds are to be devoted to Imperial defence. But I come to the speech made by the president of the League, which bears particularly on the Budget. He said:
“New methods of taxation are absolutely necessary in Great Britain, and there is no difficulty in the way except the over confidence against which Kipling writes, and the strong prejudice in the English mind against taxing wheat. It is a remarkable thing that two months after this declaration was made we have, for the first time, a tax imposed upon wheat. The joint action of the poet and the financier has overcome the prejudice in the English mind against taxing wheat; then we are to have this duty of 10 per cent. on all food introduced into this country against the foreigners, and the whole thing is accomplished. I say that that is a policy of pure and simple protection. The Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday disavowed any intention of adopting this policy of universal duties to be levied upon all foreign goods. He said we are to proceed on the principles of free trade. But he introduced a sentence that something may be done in that direction. A great deal of doubt has been raised in reference to that sentence.
“Mr. Austen Chamberlain said the right hon. gentleman the member for West Monmouth had adopted a remarkable line of argument. He had produced a pamphlet containing the report of an executive committee of a private association in Canada, and had referred to that document as if he could find in it an official explanation of the intentions and policy of His Majesty’s Government.
“Sir W. Harcourt.—I quoted it as the view to be presented by the Canadian Government. I believe I am perfectly justified in that statement.
“Mr. Austen Chamberlain said he thought the right hon. gentleman had gone a good deal further than that. The views of the association were entitled to the respect which they commanded on their merits, and for the ability with which they were put forth; but they were not binding on the Canadian Cabinet, still less on the Government of this country. It was rather a far-fetched suggestion that in such a report as that was to be found the basis of the action which His Majesty’s Government were now proposing. As a matter of fact the report appeared two months before the tax. Allusion had been made to a speech delivered by his right hon. friend the Colonial Secretary at Birmingham. But in that speech the Colonial Secretary was commenting on a speech made by the leader of the Opposition. He was not arguing in favour of preferential relations, but he was refusing to be deterred from proposing a tax which he believed to be good on its merits merely because it might be used, if the people of this country so willed, to draw closer the ties between the Motherland and the Colonies. That was a declaration which was emphasised by his right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on Monday. The whole question between the Opposition and the Government now was that hon. and right hon. gentlemen opposite wished to extort from the Government at this stage a declaration that in no circumstances and at no time would they consent to preferential arrangements with the Colonies. He thought it would be a strange proceeding if, before learning authoritatively what the Prime Ministers of the great self-governing Colonies intended to propose, before learning the arguments with which those Ministers would support their propositions, the Government were to slam the door in their faces and solemnly declare that they would not listen to any arguments on the subject. That would not be a very friendly act. It would not be courteous in dealing with strangers, and it would not be decent in dealing with our kinsmen.”
The final meeting of my campaign was at the London Chamber of Commerce on the 13th June. Mr. Morley had spoken at Edinburgh on the 8th of June, and had said generally that the policy I was advocating was contrary to the principles of Free Trade under which England had built up her wonderful prosperity, had maintained it for years, and which was the foundation of Great Britain’s present great prosperity. I had been urged very strongly by all my friends to be very cautious not to refer directly to either Free Trade or Protection. I was told that the feeling in favour of Free Trade was so strong, that it would be unwise to refer to it in set terms, and I was advised simply to argue for the war tax of 5 to 10 per cent. to raise a defence fund. Up to this time I had followed this advice, but when Mr. Morley attacked me, and raised the question, I felt that the time had arrived for me to come out boldly and in clear and unmistakable terms. I found in my movement about the country that there was much more feeling in favour of Protection than anyone believed. I therefore made up my mind to take advantage of the meeting of the London Chamber of Commerce to make a direct and vehement attack on Free Trade in order to test feeling in that centre. I carefully prepared as strong a speech as I could arrange, although I kept my own counsel as to my intentions. I decided to make my address a direct reply to the Rt. Hon. John Morley and to use his attack upon me as my excuse for criticising Free Trade in hostile terms.
The room was crowded, with a number of prominent men present. I referred to Mr. Morley’s remarks and said that I took issue with him, and that I denied that Free Trade was the cause of Great Britain’s progress. I said her position was established under a system of protection, that it was maintained by a protection of a different kind for years, and that now she was not prosperous. I gave a great many figures, and traced the trade returns at intervals from 1805 until the year 1901, and in reply to Mr. Morley’s statement of the wonderful prosperity of Great Britain I repeated the argument I used at Liverpool, and quoted again Mr. Bryce’s statement about the crushing burden the 1s. a quarter on wheat would be on about 30 per cent. of the population.