PREFERENTIAL TRADE.
mitted to Free Trade. Lord Rosebery was not strong enough to resist the influence brought to bear on him, and to my eternal regret, two days after the speech at Burnley, appeared that letter in which Lord Rosebery absolutely dissociated himself from Mr. Chamberlain's policy. I have been a Liberal Imperialist all my life up till now. But Liberal Imperialism, as I understand it, is dead. The Liberal Party, by placing their party before the country, is now united. If they persist in their present course, and if their present course is successful, it will end, in my judgment, in the dismemberment, sooner or later, of the British Empire. Holding that conviction, I have made up my mind that it is time for me to change my political allegiance. I might have been a more successful politician if I had been willing to subordinate my country to my party. I have always placed my country before my party, and I can assure you that now I have changed my political allegiance, it will always be in the future as it has been in the past.
Tariff Reform.To turn to the great question of the moment, the reforms in our Fiscal policy put before the country by Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Balfour. I freely admit that the principles of Free Trade as enunciated by Mr. Cobden are perfectly sound. I admit that those principles are as sound to-day as they were sixty years ago when enunciated by Cobden. But let us remember, as the Duke of Devonshire pointed out in the House of Lords, we have not got Free Trade, and we never have had Free Trade. The policy under which we have been living for sixty years is one of Free Imports. I am prepared to admit that a policy of free imports was sound for this country at the time it was intro-
171
