It is absolutely impossible to reconcile free trade with trade unionism. You can have one or you can have the other, but you cannot have both; and I … - Joseph Chamberlain

He heartily agreed with Dr. Smuts when he said they must stand together in the work of resettlement and restoration. The hope of South Africa lay in closer intercourse between the two races. They were not really separated either in interest or character. If they went back to their history they found that in centuries long ago they were kinsfolk, and now, although they had been separated, the resemblances between them were greater than the differences. The characteristics which the British admired they had—namely, patriotism, courage, tenacity, and willingness to make sacrifices for what they believed to be right and true. He believed that with a little consideration on both sides and readiness to give as well as take before many years, probably before many of them could anticipate, they would be one free people under one flag.

Is the Unionist party, the Conservative party, to be without a definite policy of social reform? It is to our party that they owe the whole of that body of legislation connected with the Factory Acts, free education, the distribution of lands in the shape of allotments and small holdings, the compensation for accidents to workmen in the course of their employment... The policy of resistance, of negation, is no sufficient answer to that Socialist opinion which is growing up amongst us—the Socialist opinion the objects of which are, after all, worthy of earnest and even favourable consideration...that policy, by whomsoever propounded, is a policy which means money, which means expenditure, it is closely connected with the third object of our party officially declared—that fiscal reform is the first constructive policy of the Unionist party. (Cheers.)

Now the Cobden Club all this time rubs its hands in the most patriotic spirit and says, "Ah, yes; but how cheap you are buying." Yes, but think how that effects different classes in the community. Take the capitalist... His interest is to buy in the cheapest market, because he does not produce, but can get every article he consumes. He need not buy a single article in this country; he need not make a single article. He can invest his money in foreign countries and live upon the interest, and then in the returns of the prosperity of the country it will be said that the country is growing richer because he is growing richer. What about the working men? What about the class that depends upon having work in order to earn wages or subsistence at all? They cannot do without the work; and yet the work will go if it is not produced in this country. This is the state of things which I am protesting.