=464. Demand for customs duties as a means of defense and retaliation.=—One group of “tariff reformers” clung to the ideal of free trade, and favored its maintenance as the policy of the country in general. It would, however, permit deviations from it in particular cases. The adherents of this view asserted that England stripped herself of the armor and the weapons of commercial war when she adopted complete free trade. She could make no effective protest when other nations raised tariffs against her, marked perhaps by offensive discriminations; she must suffer everything because she was forbidden to retaliate. The adherents of this view laid particular stress on the practice of “dumping,” as it is called. The manufacturers of protected nations, themselves, secure from England’s competition, market their surplus output in England at prices which may not cover the costs, much less the profits, of production. It is cheaper to do this than to break prices in the protected market at home; it kills the English industries and enables foreign manufacturers in the long run to raise prices to a profitable level in the English market. For retaliation against protective countries, and for defense against “dumping,” this school demanded that the English government be armed with the power to impose heavy duties, to be temporary in character and to be removed as soon as their immediate object has been accomplished. Such a policy has been adopted in Canada. =465. Proposal of an imperial customs union.=—Another school of tariff reformers, led by Joseph Chamberlain, accepted in general the views just indicated, but laid particular stress on another possibility in shaping English commercial policy. It would make the whole great group of English dependencies not only a political unit but a commercial unit as well, bound together in an imperial customs union (_Zollverein_), so that trade would flow from place to place within the Empire instead of crossing its frontier. It is not possible here to discuss the various aspects of this proposal, of which some of the most important are political rather than commercial in character. The attractiveness of the plan is at once apparent; it promises to assure to England a market for her manufactures in the colonies, and to the colonies a protected market for their raw materials in England. The practical weakness of the plan is, however, equally apparent; no law would be necessary to secure this result if the various parts of the Empire found it advantageous to trade with each other, and the mere suggestion that a law is necessary shows that trade would be cramped and the interests of individuals hurt by such an arrangement.