ferential duties on imported foodstuffs.
Later in the year the gifted exponent of this revolutionary programme
entered upon a vigorous speaking campaign in defense of his proposals,
and there was set up a large and representative tariff commission
which was charged with the task of framing, after due investigation, a
tariff system which would meet the needs alleged to exist. Among the
Unionist leaders there arose forthwith a division of opinion which
portended open rupture. The rank and file of the party was (p. 156)
nonplussed and undecided, and throughout many months the subject
engrossed attention to the exclusion of very nearly everything
else.[222]

[Footnote 221: In this speech, delivered at a great
Liberal meeting, there was outlined a programme
upon which Rosebery virtually offered to resume the
leadership of his party. The question of Boer
independence was recognized as settled, but
leniency toward the defeated people was advocated.
It was maintained that at the close of the war
there should be another general election. And the
overhauling of the army, of the navy, of the
educational system, and of the public finances, was
marked out as an issue upon which the Liberals must
take an unequivocal stand, as also temperance
reform and legislation upon the housing of the
poor.]

[Footnote 222: The literature of the Tariff Reform
movement in Great Britain is voluminous. The nature
of the protectionist proposals may be studied at
first hand in J. Chamberlain, Imperial Union and
Tariff Reform; speeches delivered from May 15 to
November 4, 1903 (London, 1903). Worthy of mention
are T. W. Mitchell, The Development of Mr.
Chamberlain's Fiscal Policy, in _Annals of American
Academy of Political and Social Science_, XXIII.,
No. 1 (Jan., 1904); R. Lethbridge, The Evolution of
Tariff Reform in the Tory Party, in _Nineteenth
Century_, June, 1908; and L. L. Price, An Economic
View of Mr. Chamberlain's Proposals, in