re on the general election? Is it not a cry of petulant
vexation at the natural, ordinary, long-expected sequence of events?

The right hon. gentleman[4] who moved the Resolution made a very mild
and conciliatory speech. But he confined himself to generalities. He
avoided anything like a statement of concrete proposals which he
thinks the Government ought to adopt. Those who take part in this
controversy nowadays avoid any statement of the concrete proposals
that would follow if their view were adopted. We are told what a
splendid thing preference is, what noble results it would achieve,
what inexpressible happiness and joy it would bring to all parts of
the Empire and to all parts of the earth, what wealth would be
created, how the Exchequer would gain, and how the food of the people
would cheapen in price. But, though the Government is blamed for not
acting on these suggestions, we are never told what is the schedule of
taxes which it is proposed to introduce to give effect to these
splendid and glittering aspirations.

It is perfectly impossible to discuss colonial preference apart from
the schedule of duties on which it is to be based. It is idle to
attempt to discuss it without a definite proposal as to the subjects
of taxation and as to the degree to which those different subjects are
to be taxed. And the right hon. gentleman the Member for West
Birmingham, when he dealt with this question, felt that in common
fairness he must be precise and definite. We know what he proposed in
the way of taxation on corn, meat, fruit, and dairy produce. What we
want to know is this. Is that tariff before us now? Do the Opposition
stand by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham, or do they abandon
him? That is what the House and the Government want to know--and that
is what the Colonies want to know. It is indispensable to the
discussion of this question that there should be a clear statement
from the Leader of the Opposition whether or not we are to regard the
Glasgow preferential tariff of the right hon. Member for West
Birmingham as still current as a practical policy.

Then the House has been told that the Government might have given a
preference on dutiable articles. Such a preference would introduce
into our fiscal system an entirely new, and, as the Government think,
the wholly vicious feature of discriminating between one class of
producers and another. The whole basis of our financial and fiscal
policy is, that it