Page:What colonial preference means.djvu/9

7 without taxing food. This is a serious initial difficulty in a country like this, which can only be kept alive by foreign supplies of our daily bread, our meat, our butter, our cheese, and so on, for it is believed that the supplies of home-grown food-stuffs are insufficient to supply more than one-third to one-half of our population. It is to be remembered also that although this question is generally discussed upon the dear or the cheap loaf, this is now only a portion of the problem. Imports of meat and dairy produce were not conceivable in the Corn Law days, but they are now of the last importance. If we were to have dearer bread we should at the same time have dearer beef, mutton, pork, bacon, butter, and cheese. Of course, we can by Protection materially raise the price of all these commodities, but it is difficult to imagine that the British public would stand such an application. It is true that Germany has so taxed meat that it fetches is. 6d. per pound in Berlin just now, but he would be a bold statesman who would try such an experiment in London. Of course we are told that no such results would follow here. The tax on food would be so moderate that it would not be felt, particularly as the foreigner would pay it. Precisely the same arguments have always been used in recommending Protection. It always begins, as it did in Germany, in a small and timid way, but the appetite of the protected grew so rapidly that the taxes have been raised three times in thirty years. Nor do the Germans find that the foreigner pays, although they do find that the prices for home produce rise in proportion to those of the imported foods, to the benefit, no doubt, of the German landlords, but with no benefit to the State either in revenue or otherwise.

Before considering the question of taxing food, it is