rs before the
subject attained its present prominence in public discussion, it would
ill become me to treat as foolish arguments which I once found so
convincing or to vilify opinions which I once honestly shared.

What has happened to me is what I expect has happened to a good many
people. I still admire the great Free Trade writers, the force of
their intellect, the lucidity of their arguments. There can be no
clearer proof of the spell which they exercised over the minds of
their countrymen than the fact that so many leading public men on both
sides of politics remain their disciples to this very day. But for my
own part I have been unable to resist the evidence of facts which
shows me clearly that in the actual world of trade and industry things
do not work out even approximately as they ought to work out if the
Free Trade theory were the counsel of perfection which I once thought
it. And that has led me to question the theory itself, and so
questioned it now seems to me far from a correct statement of the
truth, even from the point of view of abstract inquiry. But I am not
here to engage in abstract arguments. What I want to do is to look at
the question from a strictly practical point of view, but at the same
time a very broad one. I am anxious to bring home to you the place of
Tariff Reform in a sound national policy, for, indeed, it seems to me
very difficult to construct such a policy without a complete revision
of our fiscal arrangements. Now a sound national policy has two
aspects. There are two great objects of practical patriotism, two
heads under which you may sum it up, much as the Church Catechism sums
up practical religion, under the heads of "duty to God" and "duty to
your neighbour." These objects are the strength of the Empire, and the
health, the well-being, the contentedness of the mass of the people,
resting as they always must on steady, properly organised, and fairly
remunerated labour. Remember always, these two things are one; they
are inseparable. There can be no adequate prosperity for the forty or
fifty million people in these islands without the Empire and all that
it provides; there can be no enduring Empire without a healthy,
thriving, manly people at the centre. Stunted, overcrowded town
populations, irregular employment, sweated industries, these things
are as detestable to true Imperialism as they are to philanthropy,
and they are detestable to the Tariff Reformer. His aim is to impro