But any prohibitive tax on foreign manufactures--that is another matter, one which would protect certain trades at the expense of the community, and aggravate the very evils which Free Trade introduced. Such a system must press all the harder on that class of consumers whose pay would remain unaffected by its results, and who would, in fact, be subsidising our colonies out of their emptied pockets. The sentiment of the colonies he would have prized beyond measure, but other means for riveting it might be found; and in the undeveloped condition of many among them, would not a Canadian favouritism sow a harvest of jealousies? Moreover, the colonial population as a whole is still far too scanty for the replacement of our markets abroad; and further, the two main channels of cheap capital and British prosperity--our carrying trade and London’s commercial position as the clearing-house of the world--might be revolutionised by changes, to which no limit could be fixed. And again, the remission of Income Tax ought in justice to accompany such a system, for that tax was revived by Peel expressly because the revenue had to be reimbursed for its losses on adopting the measures for free imports. With respect to “dumping,”[85] its conditions contain its cure. England, no longer the main workshop of the world, cannot perhaps be so generous as heretofore, but she can still afford to be generous. As for the promise of higher wages through protective duties, wages are more likely to rise through the resumption of gold imports from South Africa; while the joint result of retaliatory tariffs and such imports would be doubly to enhance the price of commodities for the mass. On the other hand, the vision of a self-supporting empire he would honour, and equally the sincere and commanding zeal of its prophet. But he would surely argue that the times were far from ripe, and that small and gradual beginnings might lay firmer foundations than a colossal combination of incompatibles. Again, he would, as the writer fancies, deplore a loud and unsolicited appeal to the passions of a multitude and the greed of a class easily thus led into a lordship of mob despotism. At the same time, he would certainly recognise, as Mr. Chamberlain alone has fully recognised, the crying need for a better distribution of employment.