called Commission opened with that pompous formality which has inspired our great political caricaturist with one of his happiest ideas. It was unlucky for Mr. Chamberlain that his committee of business men, who, with singular unanimity, happened—quite accidentally, we are assured-to share his views upon fiscal reform, should have been opened in so grandiose a fashion on the very day on which his new policy received the crushing blow of the Norwich election. Mr. Chamberlain's robust and unfailing belief in himself will no doubt be proof against this, as it has been against many similar disasters; but it is difficult to believe that there is nobody on his Commission who can perceive the rather farcical light in which that body has been placed. It met, with a great flourish of trumpets, to consider the details of a scheme by which, at some future date and under some Government not yet in existence, a general scheme of 'protection' for our commerce and industries is to be carried into effect. Nobody could have gathered from the manifesto delivered by Mr. Chamberlain at its first sitting that there was any doubt, in his mind, at least, that the country was about, by a popular vote, to cast aside the system of free trade to which it owes its present position at the head of the commerce of the world, and to adopt in its place a revival of the ancient fallacies of protection. It must surely have struck some, at least, among the Commissioners that the appearance in the newspapers, side by side with the manifesto of their illustrious chief, of the figures of the Norwich election made them all look more than slightly ridiculous. Norwich is not a city to which we should look in ordinary times for any definite pronouncement upon a great political question. Only once in the last eighteen years had it given a majority of Liberal votes; the majority then recorded (in 1886) standing at the modest figure of 347. But in the election of the present month the Tory votes had fallen from 8100 (in 1895) to 6756, whilst the Liberal vote had grown from 7270 to 11,020, showing a clear majority of 4264 in favour of Liberalism. Such a turnover is rarely seen in any constituency. Nor was there any ground for doubt as to the question upon which this sweeping defeat was inflicted on the Ministerial candidate. That gentleman stood avowedly as a protectionist. His two opponents were equally clear and decided in their championship of free trade. Norwich, at least, it is evident, is not to be reckoned among those constituencies which have been captivated by the alluring eloquence which Mr. Chamberlain devotes to his propaganda on behalf of the food-tax. One swallow, I need hardly say, does not make a summer, and though the Norwich election, coming at the particular moment at which it did, was extremely awkward for the new protectionists, it would hardly have possessed serious significance if it had stood alone. But it only emphasised the result of the contest earlier in the month in the Ashburton division of Devonshire, where the free trade

candidate, although a new man, comparatively unknown in the constituency, nearly doubled the majority of his predecessor, who was, by common consent, the most popular resident in the division. In Gateshead, too, the free trade candidate was returned with a larger majority than that of his predecessor, Sir William Allan. Nor is this all. In the eleven by-elections ending with Norwich which have taken place since Mr. Chamberlain began his present campaign, whilst there has been a decrease of 1 per cent. in the Ministerial vote, that of the Opposition has been increased by not far short of 50 per cent. These are figures the significance of which cannot be misunderstood. I said some months ago in these pages, when giving my reasons for refusing to believe that Mr. Chamberlain would succeed in his ill-starred enterprise, that the issue rested, after all, with the working classes of this country, and that there was no proof that the member for West Birmingham had captured their support. When we see that in eleven by-elections they have converted a Ministerial majority of 12,906 into a Liberal majority of 3660 few will care to contest the soundness of the view which I then expressed.

Mr. Chamberlain, however, is a man not only of brilliant ability as an electioneerer, but of high courage and immense resourcefulness. I do not believe him to be one who is likely to be terrified even by such a turnover of votes as that which has led the Standard to cry out in anguish against a policy fomented, it declares, ' by statesmen, agitators, wire-pullers, and subservient newspapers,' which is driving the country straight to a Unionist defeat and an Opposition victory at the next General Election.' These words, which are not mine, but those of the ablest and most independent organ of the Conservative Party, may make an impression upon some persons, but I doubt if they will make any on Mr. Chamberlain. That gentleman has already, in his raging and tearing agitation,' risen superior to still more grievous disasters than the mere conversion of Ministerial majorities into minorities in the ballot-box. He was not stayed in his impetuous course when one man after another of the highest authority in the Cabinet of which he was a member, including all living ex-Chancellors of the Exchequer, publicly protested against a policy which combined the oldest heresies of Protectionism with that new spirit of Jingoism that soared to its highest point on the memorable night of Mafeking. When the Cabinet itself was broken up, and the distracted Mr. Balfour was seen rushing hither and thither, searching for new Ministers in every possible and impossible corner, Mr. Chamberlain's equanimity was not disturbed. Like a certain Irish landlord known to fame, the shooting of his agent was an incident that had no personal interest for himself. Again, when that Liberal Unionist Party of which he was once so proud, and in which he was so long a ruling spirit, was broken into fragments, the only matter that seemed to trouble him was the fear that he might

not be able to lay hold of the cash-box, which had been notoriously filled by men who were unable to follow him in his new adventures. A man who has preserved his self-confidence and composure under so many trials can hardly be expected to lose heart merely because a seat is lost here and there to his party.

But is he really gaining ground in his attempt to convert the country to his revolutionary policy? A month ago most persons seemed to think that he was. Free-traders appeared to be almost cowed by his volcanic energy, and the audacity with which he went on repeating statements that had been not only contradicted but disproved a hundred times over; and all the less intelligent sections of the public, especially those sections to be found in the West End of London, shouted for joy, as such people always do when they think they have found a sure thing,' whether in politics or on the turf. But now-well, now there is a distinct subsidence of the tide which seemed to be carrying the ex-Colonial Secretary to the haven of success; and it is a subsidence which cannot be attributed merely to the evidence furnished by the by-elections. A strong disposition to hedge has been shown by not a few of his backers in the Ministerial ranks, and even the long-suffering Prime Minister has gathered courage to suggest that it is quite possible to go too fast, even in an agitation which is avowedly intended to be 'raging and tearing.' If one asks for an explanation of this undoubted change of mood on the part of those who were convinced a month ago that Mr. Chamberlain was about to 'sweep the country,' I do not think that it will be difficult to find an answer to the question. In the first place, fate has been exceptionally hard during the past few weeks on the cause of fiscal reform. That cause owed its origin, according to the oft-repeated statements of its founder, to two great reasons: first, the grave state of our trade and its ever-increasing depression; and secondly, the desire of the Colonies to establish new commercial bonds between us and them, in the shape of preferential tariffs which, in our case, would involve the taxation of food. 'If you desire to keep the British Empire in existence,' said the member for West Birmingham in effect, you must make some sacrifices; you must even submit to a tax upon your bread.' And in the same breath he explained that we should really be helping rather than hurting ourselves if we yielded to the appeal of the Colonies and adopted a new fiscal system, inasmuch as our trade was in such a bad way that unless something were done, and done speedily, we should be reduced to the rank of a fifth-rate Power'-a doom with which we have constantly been threatened ever since the appearance of Macaulay's New Zealander upon the stage of politics. Here, then, was a double basis-hard fact and high sentiment-on which Mr. Chamberlain appealed to the country; and no doubt it was upon this basis and this alone that he secured the support of no inconsiderable

section of the public. But where is that basis now? Can even the eminent commercial gentlemen of the Tariff Commission' tell us how much of it remains, after the publication of the Board of Trade figures for 1903, and Mr. Chamberlain's failure to produce, in reply to the repeated challenges he has received, any evidence of those imaginary offers from the Colonies on which he based his appeal to the spirit of Imperial unity? The Board of Trade returns show that 1903 was the most prosperous year our trade has ever known, with a solid increase of fourteen and a half millions of imports and of eleven and a quarter millions of exports over the preceding year. The evidence we have had from the Colonies shows that public opinion is divided there, just as it is here, over the new policy, and that nowhere is there any apparent intention of offering any substantial concession to the commerce of Great Britain, or of demanding any sacrifices on our part in order to purchase the continued unity of the Empire. Sensible Colonials, indeed, even where they are avowed protectionists, openly scoff at the idea that the food of the British workman should be taxed for the benefit of his fellow-workmen in Australia and Canada. Lord Rosebery has not hesitated to stigmatise as 'preposterous' Mr. Chamberlain's assertion that we have received proposals on this subject from the Colonies; and I really do not see how that word can be improved upon.

'But,' say the thick-and-thin advocates of fiscal reform, 'statistics, even the statistics of the Board of Trade, cannot alter the fact that the country is just now experiencing hard times, that money is scarce and the value of securities low'; and the only cause to which they attribute this unpleasant state of affairs is that obsolete' system of free trade against which they have girded up their loins. That we are experiencing something in the nature of hard times is not to be denied, though any man who has lived for fifty or sixty years can recall seasons of depression infinitely more severe than that through which we are now passing. Yet can no reason but the tardily discovered defects of our present fiscal system be assigned for the relatively mild hard times of to-day? Have the fiscal reformers forgotten that we are staggering under the absolute loss from the economic point of view-of 220 millions expended upon the South African war? Are they ignorant of that enormous increase of expenditure, with a corresponding increase of taxation, which we have now to carry on our shoulders? Successive Finance Ministers have warned us again and again of the inevitable consequences of our reckless national extravagance, and have pointed to the very consequences of that extravagance which we have now to endure. Mr. Chamberlain and his friends, with an audacity that excites one's admiration, ignore these things. They forget the hundreds of millions that have been sunk in the gulf of war and incompetent administration, and virtually insist that, after all, the only true statesmen of recent years

have been Mr. Chaplin and Mr. James Lowther, who have never wavered in their belief that free trade and free trade alone is to be blamed not only for the big blue-bottle flies in our butchers' shops, but for any diminution of our national prosperity. Apparently, however, the Fiscal Reformers' have not found everybody so willing to endorse their canonisation of these respectable country gentlemen as they could wish. The recent letters and speeches of not a few Ministerial members, including some members of the Ministry itself, show that searchings of heart are being experienced even among those who not long ago seemed inclined to applaud Mr. Chamberlain as a new saviour of society.

Yet another reason that accounts for the change, slight but significant, which is creeping over the mood of the Ministerialists, is the extraordinary fact that the arch-propagandist of protection has not even begun to attempt to answer the arguments that have been urged against his proposal by his opponents. With wonderful cleverness he eludes every effort that is made to bring him to close quarters with those who denounce his policy, and who support their denunciation by facts and arguments. This feature of his tactics was specially conspicuous in his speech at the Guildhall. If he had the overwhelming weight of authority in statesmanship and in economic learning on his side, this might conceivably be a wise policy. But it is notorious that this is not the case. Without wishing to be disrespectful to the gentlemen who, in the columns of what the Standard bluntly calls 'subservient newspapers,' expound at prodigious length and in imposing type the weird doctrines of what is known to them as the new political economy,' I may at least maintain that they are not the only wise persons in existence. I might even go further and suggest that men who for the greater part of their lives have been engaged in the management of the financial and commercial affairs of the richest and greatest commercial nation in the world may conceivably know their own business better than the young journalists who dismiss their arguments with a triumphant sneer. After all, sensible people do not see why even Mr. Chamberlain should take no notice of the criticisms of such men as Lord Goschen, Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, and Sir Henry Fowler upon questions which they were studying closely and dealing with, in practice as well as in theory, long before the ex-Colonial Secretary found time to devote his meteoric attention to them. When one remembers further that two of these eminent men have made a heavy sacrifice of their political inclinations in order to enjoy the privilege of speaking their minds, their right to be treated with due respect by the apostle of the economic revolution seems undeniable. But it does not appear to be a right that is admitted by Mr. Chamberlain. That gentleman. has now carried on his agitation for more than eight months. But so far as argument is concerned he has not advanced it by a single