Old Joe's Boy

"What I am about to propose is the very thing for which the country has elected the present Parliament. The day has now come!"

Thus did Neville Chamberlain, Great Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, serve notice on the world last week that 86 years of British free trade were at an end. Effective March i, Britain will impose a 10% ad valorem tariff on all articles not already taxed except meat, wheat, raw cotton, raw wool, tea. British-caught fish and (until after the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa in July) exports from British colonies and dominions.

To hear the Chamberlain speech announcing the new tariff many more members of Parliament than there are seats crowded into the House of Commons. Normally this causes no inconvenience, but last week, with the benches jammed, Honorable Members sat in the aisles, sat on the floor, hung over the balconies. Canon William Hartley Carnegie, who generally holds opening prayers in the House to rows of empty benches and a handful of earnest Christians, found 300 early M. P.'s eager to join him that after noon. Passes to the visitors' galleries were rare as rubies. In the peers' gallery barons, viscounts and belted earls sat in decorously on each other's laps. Edward of Wales, the earnest Duke of York and Prince George peered over the edge of the Royal Gallery. A greenish mortuary light filtered down from the high ecclesiastical windows. It touched Chancellor Chamberlain speaking with one hand on the Budget Box. It raised pale gleams from the immaculate top hat and glittering monocle of his brother, Sir Austen Chamberlain, who nodded solemn agreement from a Tory back bench. That monocle was a symbol. It was exactly such an eyeglass that their late great father, the elegant, hawk-nosed Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914) kept firmly screwed in his face all through his long and distinguished parliamentary career. It was exactly such a tariff program, right down to the 10% basic rate, that he fought for until stricken with paralysis in his jist year. In tribute to "Old Joe," as his Birmingham constituents fondly called him, all Conservative members of the House rose from their seats when his boy Neville finished speaking. They faced the distinguished visitors' gallery, where sat a little old U. S.-born lady now known as Mrs. William Hartley Carnegie. She is "Old Joe's" widow, Neville Chamber lain's stepmother and the wife of the Chaplain of the House. In the Chancellor's speech there were a few words of vital importance to the U. S.: "Countries having discriminating tariffs against this country will have to be considered. The Board of Trade, with the concurrence of the Treasury, will be authorized to impose duties up to 100% over and above such additional duties as may be imposed upon any goods coming from the offending countries which may be specified in the order."

Free trade had but one champion in the House that afternoon. Liberal Sir Herbert Samuel broke precedent by speaking against the bill that the Cabinet of which he is a member drew up, but his voice availed not.

The U. S. Department of Commerce estimated that 46% of all U. S. exports to Britain, which heretofore have been duty free, will be affected by the new British tariff.

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