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POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDEAS.
present Cape tariff. I should like you to listen to me on that, if I do not tire you. You must remember that your ‘Little Englander’ says, and very fairly: ‘What is the advantage of all these expansions? What are the advantages of our Colonies? As soon as we give them self-government, if we remonstrate with them as to a law they pass, they tell us they will haul down the flag; and on receiving self-government, they immediately devise how they can keep our goods out, and make bad boots and shoes for themselves.’ It is true that many of our Colonies have found out the folly of Protection, but they have created a bogey which they cannot allay, because the factories have been created, the workmen have come out there, and they are only kept going by the high duties; and a poor Minister who tries to pass a low tariff knows perfectly well that he will have his windows broken by an infuriated mob. The only chance for a colony is to stop these ideas before they develop, and taking this new country of ours, I thought it would be a wise thing to put in the constitution that the tariff should not exceed the present Cape tariff, which is a revenue and not a protective tariff. (Cheers.) The proof of that is that we have not a single factory in the Cape Colony. I thought if we made that a part of our constitution in the interior, we should stop the creation of vested factories, a most unfair treatment of British trade, and a most unjust thing to the people of a new country. You may not be surprised that that proposition was refused. It was refused because it was not understood. People thought that there was a proposition for a preferential system. I may tell you that all my letters of thanks came from the Protectionists, and nothing from the Free Traders, though it was
