In the House of Commons on Tuesday Mr. Austen Chamberlain
moved the rejection of the Finance Bill. His criticism of the Land-taxes was sound and effective, but the speech ended with a passage which We greatly regret, because it will, we fear, tend to encourage Tariff Reformers through. out the country in their dangerous practice of telling the electors that their policy Means work for all and Will put an end to unemployment. We do not at the present moment wish toargue the question of Protection 'versus Free- trade, but we are convinced that even if the policy of Tariff Reform were as sound economically as we believe it to be unsound, it could not Rossibly cure the existing malady of unemployment. The truth is that the cause-s of unem- ployment are moral rather than economic, and that the remedy must also be moral. We have been stimulating the manufacture of unemployment _ during the last ten years by what in fact has been a series of bounties, and the only way to stop the output is to change our policy, in. this respect.
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