A CANADIAN ON THE" SPECTATOR'S" OPPOSITION TO MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S FISCAL
SCHEME.
rTo THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR:1 SIE,—I enclose copy of a letter received from a relative in Canada, to whom I send your paper each week. He is a barrister in good position, and well able to interpret the feeling of the Canadian West. He has been there over twenty years, and was born a Tory and has always been so since. When in England two years ago Mr. Chamberlain was his idol. You are at liberty to make what use you like of it.—I am, Sir, &c., 7 Somerfield Terrace, Maidstone. W. DAY, jun.
"Virden, Manitoba, October, 1903.
I have been wondering lately what stand you were taking on the new Chamberlain policy. I noticed the very excellent letter to the Spectator by 'H.' which you marked for attention, and it led me to infer that you were still a Free-trader. It seems to me that the stand taken by the Spectator is the right one. Do not let any sentimental Imperial ideas interfere with business. Over hero we are in the hands of the manufacturing East, who, of course, keep up a high Protective tariff at the expense of the agricultural West, and you may depend upon it that until the West has the preponderance of population the high tariff will never be pulled down.
The manufacturers furnish the sinews of war to both the political parties, and the leaders of neither will dare fall out with their paymasters. I cannot conceive what bargain Chamberlain can make with Canada for a mutual preference that would prove satisfactory to either side. You may depend upon it that we shall not admit any manufactured goods to compete effectively with our products, and the only favour we ask of you is a heavy tax on food-stuffs. I am sorry that Chamberlain has dragged the Colonial and Imperial idea into the discussion. Balfour's stand is far more reasonable. It is a pure matter of business, and sentiment should be kept out. You can never buy Colonial loyalty, and this preferential bargaining will, in my humble judgment, go far to destroy it. Here in Manitoba I do not find any great anxiety for Chamberlain's success; so far OS I can find out, the interest is about equally divided and is purely platonic, with a strong undercurrent of opinion that you are very foolish to entangle yourselves with a tariff.
Out here the best men avoid politics. There is a feeling that every politician has an axe to grind. At elections money flows like water, and where it all comes from nobody seems to know, though we have a shrewd suspicion. It is evidently worth somebody's while to furnish the funds, and you may depend upon it the out- lay has to be refunded with usury, and probably through the tariff; and I fear that if you once go into the Protective business your elections and your legislators will become as corrupt as ours are, or what is about the same, you will trust your politicians as little as we trust ours. We are afraid of Government ownerships and of any advance along the lines of social organisations because of our distrust of our politicians. You are more Socialistic than we are because you trust your leaders, or rather, have confidence in the honesty of their intentions. Nothing could compensate you for the loss of that confidence. I have very little fear that you will abandon Free-trade ; but if you do it seems to me that you will have driven the first nail into the coffin of the British Empire."
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