Tariff Reform

Tariff Reform split the MPs of the Conservative Party and their government coalition allies in the Liberal Unionist Party and was the major factor in its landslide defeat in 1906 to the Liberals who advocated Free Trade. The Conservative Party under Bonar Law slightly downplayed Tariff Reform as official policy, abandoning Balfour's pledge that it would be put to the public in a referendum. Some wartime tariffs ("McKenna Duties") were, ironically, introduced by the Liberal Chancellor Reginald McKenna in 1915.