In the House of Lords on Thursday Lord Rosebery initiated
what for want of a better phrase we may call an inter- rogatory debate in regard to the inquiry into our fiscal system, and after a good deal of talk elicited from the Duke of Devonshire that the Cabinet were conducting the inquiry. We cannot agree that in the present circumstances it is good policy to badger so sound a Free-trader as the Duke of Devonshire, who, we may be sure, would not occupy his present difficult position unless he believed it to be necessary for him to do so in the highest interests of the Empire; but at the same time we cannot but express our 4-aram gratitude for the admirable words in which Lord Rosebery in the non-personal part of his speech dealt with the general problem. "You may increase the wealth of the Empire, as you promise to do; you may improve our fiscal condition, as you promise to do; you may raise wages, as you promise to do; but the Empire you create by these means will be a very different Empire from the one you know at present." This is an Empire of peace ; that will bristle with tariffs, and be brimful of retaliation, no longer a peaceful market for the nations at large, but open to attack all over the world. That is a clear and impressive statement of a most momentous fact. If Lord Rosebery will continue to keep this side of the problem before the public, he will do the Empire an incalculable service, and will win the regard of all who, like ourselves, care especially in this matter for the prosperity and integrity of the Imperial fabric.
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