will also find out. When they find it out, however, their occupation will be gone. And now I will tell them something which they may perhaps not know, and which may console them from their point of view. It is this: that the balance in favour of France in 1880 was not as large as it appears, as Mr. Chamberlain pointed out in his speech on the French treaty. He tells us, "The returns of the Board of Trade must be taken with qualifications, and applied with knowledge. The figures for the French imports must be reduced by what is re-exported to the United States and our Colonies; and for those textiles of different kinds which come from Switzerland through France, and which are inextricably mixed up with our French imports. With regard to our exports, on the other hand, they have to be increased by the amounts due for yarns intended for French manufactures in the Vosges, which go by way of Antwerp, and which, therefore, do not appear in the exports to France." The consequence is, that the balance against us is not 26½ millions, but something considerably less, and this will probably console our Fair Trade friends. We must not, however, reduce this balance too much, for if we do, we shall demolish entirely that grievance of theirs about France; and from their point of view that would be a great calamity!
But I have not done yet by a long way with our friends. I mean to pursue to the bitter end their argument as to taxing foreign manufactures.
The ruling idea of the Fair Trader is, apparently, to accomplish one of two things. If the foreigner taxes our manufactures, we are to tax his; if he admits our goods free, we are to admit his goods free. He contends that if we are compelled, in the first case, to keep out foreign goods, our workmen will step into the place thus left vacant, and supply our home market with these or similar goods. But, there are goods with which we cannot be supplied at home owing to disabilities of soil and climate, to say nothing of race, but which it is of actual necessity, or prime convenience, for us to obtain. After what I have said, it must be clear that by taxing these, so far from helping the British workman, we should only impoverish him. There
