TARIFF REFORM.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—The Morning Post in a leading article of September 11th on the labour trouble, says : " Under the German Tariff real wages have risen. Under Free Trade real wages in England have fallen, and, until a change of fiscal policy takes place, no marked and permanent improvement can be looked for." This statement hardly bears out the report from their own corre- spondent in Berlin, dated September 3rd, who remarks that- " The Berlin Social Democratic Committee has convened a number of meetings in Berlin and the neighbourhood to protest against the abnormally high prices for the necessities of life prevailing all over the Empire. The distress affects large bodies of the working classes, making it practically impossible for them to buy the better kinds of meat. In Frankfort-on-Main, from June 1911 to August of this year, the price of pork bad risen from 60.8 pfennigs per pound to 96 pfennigs, and other kinds of meat in proportion. Many cities are calling on the Government to take steps to meet the situation. One of the panaceas offered for alleviating present distress is the summoning of the Reichstag to call on the Govern- ment to modify its fiscal policy in the way of opening the frontiers altogether, or, at least, to curtail some of the difficulties which stand in the way of the importation of live stock. It is antici, pated that if General Elections took place this autumn the 44 million Sorialista would be increased to 6 millions."
In spite of these warnings the Morning Post continues to turn a deaf ear to the country constituencies, where a tax on food is barred by the Conservative farmers and the labouring classes
of both parties.—I am. Sir, &c., H. T. MORGAN, Chairman of the Mendleshara Conservative Association. Wetheringsett Manor, Stounnarkst, Suffolk.
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