Lord Salisbury made on Wednesday a speech in South London
of some importance. It was a Fair-trade speech. He declared that foreign countries were depressing our trade by rais- ing a wall of tariffs against us, and that, unless we could enact retaliatory tariffs, we should go into the war unarmed. If, for example, Spain taxed our goods unfairly, we ought to tax sherry till she came to a better mind. That is to say, because we lose by not selling cottons to Spain, we ought to lose more by buying sherry too dear. Moreover, he was in favour of Free- trade between England and her Colonies, Colonial imports being admitted duty free, if only our goods were admitted in the same way. As the great Colonies are not going to admit our goods, that suggestion does not matter; but imagine its effect if it were carried out in the articles of ram and tea. All the taxes on spirits must be taken off, or Jamaica would have a monopoly, while the tea-duty would disappear, Indian tea killing the Chinese article. That would be Free-trade, truly, so carefully applied that it would first of all rain the British Treasury. The rest of the speech was mainly an argument that the Radicals were threatening the Church, and that it was, therefore, legitimate to raise the question of Disestablishment, and a series of jeers at the Moderates for not joining the Tories. At present they only cling round the legs of the advancing Radicals. How are Moderates to join, or even to tolerate, a man who talks Lord Salisbury's economic nonsense ?
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