Page:The New Protectionism.djvu/43

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DEFENCE AND OPULENCE
19

popular an electoral cry; periods of trade depression and unemployment, the one real hope of our Protectionists, were not long enough or bad enough to serve the purpose.

The Boer War brought into play new emotional forces and a financial situation which seemed favourable for Tariff Reform. The war-borrowing left a larger indebtedness, and the new naval programme, taken in conjunction with the costs of long-due social reforms, like old-age pensions, brought a pressure on the public revenue which gave plausibility to any scheme for "broadening the basis of taxation." The rally of Imperialist sentiment in our self-governing dominions and their active support in the war gave a new, passionate emphasis to the notion of a self-sufficing Empire bound together by a system of mutually preferential tariffs. The bitter criticism of our policy upon the Continent, and the threats of concerted intervention in favour of the Boer Republics, left in our people a powerful

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