therefore, not on a free and equal, but on a privileged, footing. We bear, as it were, all the foundation expenses of the markets we keep open for their benefit. We bear all the cost of our own wars, and part of the cost of their wars; for we still pay, generations afterwards, income-tax towards the expense of driving the French out of the United States as well as out of Germany.
This is the aspect in which our fiscal system least resembles sanity. It works most directly to increase the relative power of our competitors. Le revenu c'est l'État. The more we facilitate their trade, the more their revenue is assisted, and as it rises, in the case of Germany, it goes straight into battleships. The more our trade is restricted by foreign tariffs, on the other hand, the more our revenue is injured. Since we must provide for a certain expenditure, by so much as we exempt foreign trade from indirect taxation, by so much do we increase the burthen of direct taxation upon ourselves. Free imports in this market do not mean equality. They act as a continuous discount upon national resources, and under the peculiar conditions of our historic indebtedness they involve a species of discrimination against the British citizen. Preference for the King's subjects throughout the Empire, in the home market no less than in the Colonies, is no less just than desirable. The system of relative advantage in Imperial commerce would enhance our relative power in international politics. The agreement of Mr. Chamberlain's foreign opponents on this point is one of the facts which should decide us in favour of his policy.
The Spectator, for instance, recently recommended[1] its readers to study, as the best refutation of fiscal reform arguments, Dr. Pierre Aubry's comparatively recent book.[2] The present writer has given due attention to a volume worthy of some respect. Stiffly dogmatic in opinion, and far from showing the very widest acquaint-
- ↑ In a review of 'Compatriot Club Essays.'
- ↑ 'Étude Critique de la Politique Commerciale de l'Angleterre à l'Égard des ses Colonies,' par Pierre Aubry (Rivière, Toulouse, 1904).
