[It was] better to keep the employment in this country even though the workmen (and everyone else) had to pay a little more for the articles manufact… - Joseph Chamberlain

England without an Empire! Can you conceive it? England in that case would not be the England we love. (Cheers.) If the ties of sympathy...between ourselves and our children who are soon to become great nations across the seas—if these ties were weakened or destroyed, if we suffered their affection to die from want of food, if we allowed them to drift apart—then this England of ours would sink from the comparative position which she has enjoyed throughout the centuries...she would be a fifth-rate nation existing on the sufferance of her more powerful neighbours.

I have taken office with two objects; to see whether something cannot be done to bring the self-governing Colonies and ourselves into closer relations, and to attempt the development of the resources of the Crown Colonies, especially to increase our trade with those Colonies.

It will be impossible to secure preferential treatment with the colonies without some duty on corn as well as on other articles on food, because these are the chief articles of colonial produce. Whether this will raise the cost of living is a matter of opinion, and there is no doubt that in many cases a duty of this kind is paid by the exporter, and it really depends on the extent of competition among the exporting countries... But, even if the price of food is raised, the rate of wages will certainly be raised in greater proportion. This has been the case both in the United States and Germany. In the former country the availabile balance left to the working man after he has paid for necessaries is much larger than here. These are facts which we have to bring to the notice of the working men generally.