A.—s

230

Eight Day. ill) April IIMI7.

\ i v general sense—had to be postponed, as he indicated, until there should be some change of opinion But looking through the reports of this first Conference, one finds even at that date most of the salient features of the discussion as it has since been developed, were already present to the minds of those who assembled here. The question of foreign bounties and how they should be met--whether by retaliation or otherwise —was dealt with. Sir Samuel Griffith, then Premier of Queensland, submitted an express proposition for the granting of preferential trade, which will be found on page 462 of the same hook. He said : " The question that I should like to "submit for consideration to-day is whether that conclusion ought not to be "carried further, whether it should not be recognised as part of the duty of " the governing bodies of the Empire to see that their own subjects have a " preference over foreign subjects in matters of trade." Lower down on the same page he said : " I am not going to venture into the deep waters of "Free Trade and Protection; but J maintain that buying in the cheapest "market is not the greatest consideration in the world- that after all that " or any other system of fiscal policy can only be adopted as a means to an end, " the end being the prosperity of the country to which we belong." Omitting a sentence : "If that can be best done by buying in the cheapest market, " and insisting that that shall he done, by all means be it so. But if buying " in some other than the cheapest market would conduce more to the prosperity of the Empire, then, as in all other matters, individual liberty " must yield to the general good of the whole community. All govern- " ment, I suppose, consists in a surrender of individual liberty in some "particulars for the benefit of the whole community. I am not sanguine "enough to suppose that anything is likely to he done just now; nor do I " suggest any interference in the least degree with the tariffs of any countries, "or that it should be insisted that any country should impose a customs " charge for any goods if it does not choose to do so. But I submit for consideration this proposition: Thai if any member of the Empire thinks fit " for any reason to impose Customs charges upon goods imported from abroad, " it should be recognised that goods coming from British possessions should "be subject to a lighter duty than those coining from foreign possessions: "or to put it in, I think, a preferable way, that the duty on goods imported " from abroad being fixed according to the convenience of the country, according to the wishes of its legislature, as to which there should be perfect " freedom, with which I would no! in the least interfere, a higher duty should "be imposed upon the same kind of goods coming from foreign countries." I have read rather more than I intended, but a portion of the speech shows that evem at that elate the idea embodied in proposals for preferential trade was quite clearly recognised by this most capable Australian statesman. Then it is notable, too, that in the course of the debate a Victorian statesman, perhaps known by name to most present, the Hon. dames Service, who was during the whole of his career an ardent Free Trader, and to whom this proposition appeared then to be suggested almost for the first time, after remarking that lie was a Free Trader, said at page 471: "if " this question were to be raised now as a Free Trade and Protection "question, I would not take any part in the discussion, because I am not " prepared to open up that whole question. I am not, however, one of " those Free- Traders who believe in Free Trade as a fetish to be worn as a " mere phrase round our necks, and who regard it as always indicative "of precisely the same condition of things that it was indicative of in the " Cobden period, or hold that circumstances might never arise of an Imperial "character which might demand a revision of our policy upon that subject." Generally, T think, I may say that was the attitude of the majority of the speakers on that occasion. At all events I find myself reported as having

Preferential Trade. (Mr. Deakin.)