The Tariff Reformer rejects this single cast-iron principle. He refuses to bow down before it, regardless of changing circumstances, regardless of the policy of other countries and of that of the other Dominions of the Crown. He wants a free hand in dealing with imports, the power to adapt the fiscal policy of this country to the varying conditions of trade and to the situation created at any given time by the fiscal action of others. He has no superstitious objection to using duties either to increase employment at home or to secure markets abroad. But on the other hand he does not go blindly for duties upon foreign imports as so-called Free Traders go blindly against them, except in the case of articles not produced in this country, some of which the Free Traders are obliged to tax preposterously. Tariff Reform is not one-ideaed, rigid, inelastic, as our existing system is. Many people are afraid of it, because they think Tariff Reformers want to put duties on foreign goods for the fun of the thing, merely for the sake of making them dearer. Certainly Tariff Reformers do not think that cheapness is everything. Certainly they hold that the blind worship of immediate cheapness may cost the nation dear in the long run. But, unless cheapness is due to some mischievous cause, they are just as anxious that we should buy cheaply as the most ardent Cobdenite, and especially that we should buy cheaply what we cannot produce ourselves. Talking of cheapness, however, I must make a confession which I hope will not be misunderstood by ladies present who are fond of shopping--I wish we could get out of the way of discussing national economics so much from the shopping point of view. Surely what matters, from the point of view of the general well-being, is the productive capacity of the people, and the actual amount of their production of articles of necessity, use, or beauty. Everything we consume might be cheaper, and yet if the total amount of things which were ours to consume was less we should be not richer but poorer. It is, I think, one of the first duties of Tariff Reformers to keep people's eyes fixed upon this vital point--the amount of our national production. It is that which constitutes the real income of the nation, on which wages and profits alike depend.