I wish to look at it from two points of view.  The principle which lies at the root of Tariff Reform, in its Imperial aspect, is the national principle.  The people of these great dominions beyond the seas are no strangers to us.  They are our own kith and kin.  We do not wish to deal with them, even in merely material matters, on the same basis as with strangers.  That is the great difference between us Tariff Reformers and the Cobdenites.  The Cobdenite only looks at the commercial side.  He is a cosmopolitan.  He does not care from whom he buys, or to whom he sells.  He does not care about the ulterior effects of his trading, whether it promotes British industry or ruins it; whether it assists the growth of the kindred States, or only enriches foreign countries.  To us Tariff Reformers these matters are of moment, and of the most tremendous moment.  We do not undervalue our great foreign trade, and I for one am convinced that there is nothing in the principles of Tariff Reform which will injure that trade.  Quite the reverse.  But we do hold that our first concern is with the industry and productive capacities of our own country, and our next with those of the great kindred countries across the seas.  We hold that a wise fiscal policy would help to direct commerce into channels which would not only assist the British worker, but also assist Colonial development, and make for the greater and more rapid growth of those countries, which not only contain our best customers, but our fellow citizens.

That, I say, is one aspect of the matter.  But then there is the other side—­the question of social reform in this country.  Now here again we differ from the Cobdenite.  The Cobdenite is an individualist.  He believes that private enterprise, working under a system of unfettered competition, with cheapness as its supreme object, is the surest road to universal well-being.  The Tariff Reformer also believes in private enterprise, but he does not believe that the mere blind struggle for individual gain is going to produce the most beneficent results.  He does not believe in cheapness if it is the result of sweating or of underpaid labour.  He keeps before him as the main object of all domestic policy the gradual, steady elevation of the standard of life throughout the community; and he believes that the action of the State deliberately directed to the encouragement of British industry, not merely by tariffs, is part and parcel of any sound national policy and of true Imperialism.  And please observe that in a number of cases the Radical party itself has abandoned Cobdenism.  Pure individualism went to the wall in the Factory Acts, and it is going to the wall every day in our domestic legislation.  It is solely with regard to this matter of imports that the Radical party still cling to the Cobdenite doctrine, and the consequence is that their policy has become a mass of inconsistencies.  It is devoid of any logical foundation whatever.