ABSTRACT
The link between tariff reform and social reform was complex, and as the tariff debate evolved there were shifts in emphasis concerning their exact relationship. In terms of the burgeoning debate on social reform of the twentieth century, the Conservative party’s emphasis on the employment effects of tariff reform can be interpreted variously. The stress on protecting employment by tariffs offered the Conservatives a powerful negative to place against Liberalism’s heritage and the policy tradition of the Liberal party. Joseph Chamberlain’s inconsistency over this matter should not be allowed to obscure the significance of the revenue argument to the social reforming side of the tariff campaign. After 1903 Chamberlain mentioned few if any legislative proposals for social reform, and no link between such legislation and the revenue potential of tariffs. Old age pensions were perhaps the most discussed reform in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and they were the issue mentioned in connection with the tariff campaign.
