The Duke of Devonshire at the sixth annual general meet-
ing of the British Empire League—which has many Colonial as well as British members—on Monday declared that we were bound to let the Colonies know that the fiscal question had already reached a stage "at which it has become far more a question of internal British politics than even of Colonial politics." It has passed from the sentimental to the practical stage, " and I am sure that our Colonies will not resent it if we tell them plainly and clearly that, if we are induced to assent to any considerable changes in the fiscal .and commercial arrangements which we have hitherto thought conducive to our interests, we shall do it in our own interest, and not simply as a means of conciliating their goodwill." A scheme of preferential arrangements, to be fair and just to the various parts of the Empire, could only be secured by "something in the nature of a bargain to which each party will be bound to adhere," and this would involve, the surrender by the Colonies of " some of that independence and peifect freedom of action in their fiscal, continteroial, and
industrial legislation to which hitherto they have appeared to attach in their own interest so great an importance."
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