THE COLONIES AND MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S PROPOSALS.
WHATEVER views people may hold on the main issues of the present controversy, we trust that they will not be misled by the notion that we must do something to meet the wishes of the Colonies, or else we shall run a great risk of losing them.' Nothing could possibly be further from the truth than what is implied in such words as these. There is no danger of losing the Colonies if the people of this country come to the conclu- sion, as we feel certain they will, that they must refuse to raise impediments to trade in the shape of Custom-duties, except only for purposes of revenue. But it may be said :— ' How can this be ? The Colonies have come to us and have asked us definitely through their responsible Ministers to give them a preference in our markets and to treat them differently from foreigners, and how can we refuse their spontaneous request without inflicting on them a snub and making them feel that we care nothing for their interests ? How can we do that after the help they gave us in South Africa ? ' Those who accept the premises on which these questions are based very naturally feel disturbed by them. If it were a fact that the self-governing Colonies through their Premiers had spontaneously come to us and urged on us some system of preferential trade, we admit that the situation would be a very grave and embarrassing one. We could not even then consent to injure ourselves and the Colonies at the request of the Colonies, but a refusal would be very difficult. But happily no such case has arisen. The Colonies have not asked for a preferential system. The most that they have done has been, at the urgent suggestion of the advocates of preferential duties here, to say that if the Mother-country spontaneously gives them a preference they will be grateful, and to approve the general principle that we shall do our best to prevent a Colony being penalised because it has so planned its own Custom-duties as to help British goods. The Colonial Governments and peoples, being of flesh and blood, could not have done less. They would not have been human had they remained indifferent to Mr. Chamberlain's proposals. While one of the greatest of British statesmen, and a statesman known for his sympathy with the Colonies and for his desire to help them in every way, is pressing the heady goblet of Protection to their lips and inviting them to drink, they cannot be expected to dash it to the ground. But between showing a certain approval of a scheme which they are assured by its ardent advocates is sure to be adopted by the British people and formally demanding the adoption of a preferential system by the Mother-country there is a whole world of difference. The British people, then, can tell the Colonists—or, rather, a portion of them, for we must remember that in Australia, in Canada, and even in New Zealand, there is by no means unanimity of view on fiscal problems—that Mr. Chamber- lain's projects are impracticable, and would, even if practicable, be injurious to the Empire, without in any way hurting the feelings of the Colonies..
Besides, as Mr. E. T. Cook shows in an admirable article, "The. Colonial View," printed in the July number of the New Liberal Review—a number, we may remark, full of good things connected with the present controversy —some of the leading Colonial statesmen not very long ago condemned the idea of preferential treatment or of a British Iniperial Zollverein on Colonial and Imperial grounds, and there is no reason to believe that they have changed their minds. Mr. Cook states the case as follows :—" We are told, then, that the acceptance of Mr. Chamberlain's policy is a matter of duty to the Colonies, and'that if we do not take it, they will leave us. I do not believe the threat, or admit the duty (in the form in which it is presented). Mr. Seddon is a good deal better than his words, and more level-headed than his economics. Recent events suggest, not that the sentimental bonds of Empire are near straining-point, but that they have never been more strong. The solidarity of the Empire has been triumphantly vindicated on the battle-fields of South Africa. The strain of war which it was once predicted would be a dissolvent has in fact turned out to be a cement. Let us trust that a policy which is now presented to us as a cement may not in fact operate as a dissolvent. There are, then, no antecedent circumstances to support the proposition that unless the Imperial structure is immediately • over- hauled it will cleave asunder. What is the particular occasion adduced as proof ? It is, as we have seen,. the concession by Canada of preferential treatment to British imports, the offer (not as yet reduced to precise form) of other Colonies to do the same, and the argument that this requires, in duty and of necessity, a fiscal quid pro quo on our side. But it can be shown clearly from the words of Colonial Ministers themselves that no such duty or necessity exists." After this admirable summary, Mr. E. T. Cook proceeds to call his witnesses to prove his 'proposition, and proves it up to the hilt. The first witness he calls is Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Premier of Canada. This is what Sir Wilfrid Laurier said in 1897 in explanation of the preference given by Canada to British goods :— " This we have done not asking any compensation. There is a class of our fellow-citizens who ask that all such concessions should be made fora quid pro quo. The Canadian Government has ignored all such sentiments. We have 'done it because we owe a debt of gratitude to Great Britain. We have done it because it is no intention of ours to disturb in any way, the system of Free-trade which has done so much for England.—(Speech at Liverpool, June 12th, 1897.) " I1t an interview a few days later with the editor of a Canadian paper in London Sir Wilfrid repeated and emphasised this declaration :— " We give England this preference, and we ask nothing in return. Why do we give it ? Out of gratitude—pure gratitude. England has given us the greatest of all boons—the right to govern ourselves. I touched lightly on the subject in thy Liver- pool speech, and it must be the keynote of my explanation of the action of the Canadian Government. . . . . Before-we brought in our tariff we looked carefully round the world, and we found England to be practically the only country which receives our products freely. We desired to show England our gratitude. —(Daily Chronicle, 1897.)" Mr. E. T. Cook next calls Mr. Seddon, and shows that only, last year he expressed his desire to remove " any mis- apprehension that might have arisen as to the proposals of the Colonies in respect to preferential trade with the Mother-country." After reading the Resolution' of the New Zealand Government in favour of a preferential system, and suggesting " a rebate of duties on Colonial pro- ducts now taxable," he went on to declare that "the Motion was conceived in the spirit and desire to help,—to give and not a desire to take It was love and not sordid motives.that prompted the sending of -the Resolu- tion." This is, clear enough, but Sir Wilfrid Laurier went even further, for he actually pointed out the risks that would be run under a system in which Britain would grant preferential duties. Asked by an interviewer —in 1897—whether he would refuse a preference for Canadian products, he used these memorable words :- "Well, no [he said], perhaps not. If England were willing to give us a preference over other nations, taking our goods on exceptionally favourable terms, I would not object. It would not be for Canada to shut herself out from the advantage. It would be a great boon for the time. But for how long would it last ? Would it be an advantage in the long run ? That is what men who think beyond the passing moment have to ask themselves. Suppose England did such a thing and abandoned her Free-trade record. She would inevitably curtail the purchasing poiver of her people. And do you not think we should suffer from that, we who alone have natural resources enough to feed your millions from our fertile lands ? I have too great a belief in English common- sense to think that they will do any such thing. What we have done in the way of tariff preference to England we have, as I said, done out of gratitude to England, and not because we 'want her to enter upon the path of Protection. " We knew that the English people will not interfere with the policy of Free-trade, and we do not desire them to do so. We know that buying more goods from England- she will buy more from us and so develop trade, and the moment trade is developed Canada is benefited."
If it is asked,—How are we to reconcile these doubts as to the good effects of preferential duties with the fact that Sir Wilfrid Laurier assented to them in Canada ? the answer is easy. In the case of Canada the operation meant the taking off of duties,—an end commendable in itself. In the case of Britain it would mean imposing duties which did not exist,—a consideration which changes open first slammed, and then reopened by an inch.
We have by no means exhausted Mr. E. T. Cook's quotations. Another most important excerpt is from the conclusions arrived at by the Colonial Conference last year. It meets most satisfactorily the assertion that we must tax foreign food in order to retaliate on the penalisa- tion of the Colonies by foreign Powers :- "In connection with the discussion of the question of preferen- tial trade the Conference also considered the point raised by the Commonwealth Government as to the possibility of the Colonies losing most-favoured-nation treatment in foreign countries in the event of their giving a tariff preference to British goods. As, however, the exports from the Colonies to foreign countries are almost exclusively articles of food or raw materials for various industries, the possibility of discrimination against them in foreign markets was not regarded as serious, and as the exports from foreign countries to the Colonies are mainly manufactured articles it was recognised that if such discrimination did take place the Colonies had an effective remedy in their own hands."
In other words, there is no reason why we should slap our own faces in order to punish Germany. "The Colonies have an effective remedy in their own hands."
The next witness called by Mr. E. T. Cook as to " the Colonial view " is Sir Edmund Barton. The following passage is from a speech made in England last year:— "With regard to the Imperial Zollverein which had been mentioned, he desired to say this : if it meant that there was to be Free-trade between various parts of the Empire, in the present state of the development of the self-governing Colonies he did not think it would be so beneficial as many people supposed. They must cut their coat according to their cloth. They must not lose sight of the fact that, as several of these Parliaments were autono- mous, they could not compel them to become Free-traders or Protectionists.—(Tunbridge Wells, August 14th, 1902.) " That is a perfectly frank and reasonable statement, and highly honourable to the man who made it and to the people for whom he spoke. But are we to be told that the Australians are so narrow-minded that though they claim such frankness and independence for themselves, they will not allow them in the Mother-country ? A thousand times " No." Australia will no more quarrel with us, or consider that we have treated her unfairly, because we refuse to tax our food-supplies than we shall quarrel with her or think she is unfair to us because she will not abandon her pro- tection of native industries.
Before we leave the subject of " the Colonial view," so ably presented by Mr. E. T. Cook, who has once again shown himself one of the most powerful of living publicists, we should like to add a quotation from the views of the Right Hon. G. H. Reid, one of Australia's leading statesmen. This is to be found in the Daily Chronicle of Wednesday. It is thus that the Leader of the Opposition in the Commonwealth Parliament—a Leader who may at any moment become Prime Minister— speaks :— " It is not so much the effect of such proposals upon the self- governing States that makes one pause and feel an immense degree of anxiety; it is because of the tremendous issues in- volved to the Mother-country herself. Young countries like Canada and Australia and the South African Colonies can make any number of mistakes in their fiscal policy without vital disaster. They are young; and have unlimited scope for develop- ment, whereas the Mother-country presents one of the most remarkable examples of almost unnatural development the world has ever seen."
" The suggestions which are now being made by the British Ministry might be more likely to be listened to if we saw in the patient for whom they wish to prescribe indications of a failing constitution. So far from that, the British people were never BO robust, had never so vast a range of commercial development, and were never so powerful upon the seas. When one considers the dazzling grandeur of the progress of the Mother-country, in spite of all the barricades of other nations, it really does seem astounding that Mr. Chamberlain, who has been well grounded in sound principles, and who has so recently and so loudly proclaimed the efficiency and wisdom of those principles, should now with theatrical suddenness become the hope and hero of the Protec- tionists both at home and abroad."
While such views as those quoted in the present article exist in the Colonies, we would warn our readers not to fall into the fatal error of imagining that unless we swallow Mr. Chamberlain's policy we shall lose the Colonies. Perse- verance in a policy which leaves them and us absolutely free will never lose us the Colonies. What would lose
Previous page
