259

A.—s

can be productive of nothing but good. This would be the best possible means of bringing about a better understanding between us aii, of removing uneasy apprehensions that we are neglecting valuable means of union, and of assuring us that if we do fail to find and use a path we can tread together it has not been for want of research or from want of consideration, or from want of the wdsh and will to take every step in our power making for the cohesion of the peoples now linked together, by what we hope are imperishable ties to which We would be glad to add, so long as it shall be in our power. What may be termed the British view o\' British possibilities or of the condition and cost of any reciprocity, is not for me to discuss or even speculate upon. What I have attempted in brief has been the presentation of the Australian case from an Australian point of view, so far as it appears desirable to urge it upon this Conference. The policy is large, and the principle of that policy applies not only to trade and commerce, but is capable, as already suggested, of indefinite expansion. It might be discussed from many other standpoints, but I have been able, under the circumstances of personal pressure under Which we are all conducting these discussions, to touch only those which appear to me pertinent here and now. The resolutions which have been submitted by the Commonwealth embody in very slightly different form those adopted in 1902, making them, as we consider, a little more explicit and comprehensive, but in no way departing from the principle then adopted. It now remains for me, in response to a suggestion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday, to say a word or two in regard to the particular measure of preference which is included in this paper—Colonial Breferential Tariffs.* No such scheme of preference as I have been foreshadowing or discussing has as yet been formulated in Australia. The earlier years of our Federation —we are now in our seventh year of existence as one Commonwealth—have been filled with discussions of great difficulty and of absorbing interest, accompanied by not a few excitingchanges and unexpected incidents of a Parliamentary character. Public opinion in our country still retains certain divisions, natural or artificial, wdiich have to be surmounted before our efforts can be focussed in a national direction, but when you take into account the vast distances which separate us, it is no ground for surprise that in the seventh year of our existence as one political community we have not even yet entirely surmounted these Provincial divergencies which have existed, often in a very acute form, for the last thirty or forty years. The evidence of the last two general elections of the Commonwealth proves that we are moving steadily towards such a preference or such preferences as I have referred to, but we have not yet propounded a complete scheme of any of these on either basis: that is to say, neither as a one-sided preference tendered by ourselves, nor still less of the possibilities of a preference balanced by concessions from you. Our hope of an early reciprocity from the Mother Country has never been strongenough to encourage such a thorough study of possible tariff changes as would be necessary in drawing up proposals for a complete scheme. We have not even framed a finished plan for any preference, except in regard to New Zealand and South Africa. We made a beginning with these under very special circumstances. Last year a Reciprocity Treaty was drawn up by the late Mr. Seddon, my colleague, Sir William Lyne, our Minister of Trade and Commerce, and myself, which required, among other alterations, increases of duties upon certain classes of imports from this country. To balance these increases as well as was possible at that time in our Session, we accompanied this proposal in respect to New Zealand with an instalment of preferential trade to you. It was explained at the time by me, when introducing it, to be * See No. XXI or [Cd. 3624]: Papers laid before the Conference.

Xinl li Day. 1 .May 1007.

Preferential Trade. (Mr. Deakin.)