307

A.—s

dominating interests of your own communities, not one word 1 will not say of remonstrance, because remonstrance would be a ridiculous thing to speak of—but not one word of criticism will you hear from those representing the Imperial Government. Even now —I call attention to it again, not as a matter of complaint, but as simply a matter of fact—in these very preferential tariffs that have been the subject of discussion during the last few days, there is not one of them which proposes to let British manufactures enter into the Colonial markets to compete on level terms with the Colonial manufacture in regard to the class of commodities the proeluction of which you think it your duty to encourage by protective duties. And ejuitc rightly, from your point of view, if I may say so, because what is the good of protecting and fostering the growth of native industries if at the same time you are going to admit against them into the market the most dangerous competitor in the whole world—because that is what the British manufacturer is. Dr. JAMESON : We are going to admit the most dangerous before the less dangerous, namely the foreign. Sir WILLIAM LYNE : The Americans are the most dangerous. Mr. ASQUITH : You do not quite take my point, which is this, that you are not going to admit anybody, British or foreign, to compete on level terms in your markets in respect of the industries which you desire to protect. You could not do it. It is a negation of Protection. Obviously the thing itself is contradictory. I will not go into the question whether the British manufacturer will remain the most dangerous. I think at this moment he still is, at any rate, very dangerous, and you cannot have him in. You know you cannot without abandoning Protection. Why make any disguise about it ! We do not make any, and you do not make any. So that you see, under the system of preference, or the mitigated form of Protection which it is proposed your protective tariff should now take, it is essential for your purpose in the exercise of your fiscal independence, and in the maintenance as you conceive it to be of your economic interests, to exclude the British manufacturers to a very large extent from your markets. I say Ido not make it a matter of complaint, hut T note it as a fact taken for granted by every one round this table. If we have given, as we have given, and as I have shown, eemiplete fiscal autonomy to our Colonies, and if they have made and are- making the fullest use of that independence in what they conceive to be their own interests, let me say that we retain that autonomy for ourselves, and I do not believe that there is a man here who will dispute not only our right, but our duty to do so. We retain it for ourselves, and just as you, examining the special local conditions with which you have respectively to deal in your various communities, have come to the conclusion—rightly or wrongly, I do not say—that is a matter we must leave to the verdict of history—that for the proper and rapid development of those communities the adoption of Protection is necessary or at any rate expedient, so we here, having regard to the special conditions and interests of our population, have come to the conclusion that the maintenance of Free Trade in its fullest and widest sense, is not only expedient but absolutely vital to our economic interests. This is not a sudden or hastily formed opinion on the part of the British people. They cameto that conclusion 60 years ago. Some one said in the course of the discussion yesterday, that that was in the belief that the rest of the world would adopt the same view. Nothing of-the kind. Mr. DEAKIN : Was it not prophesied by Cobden '.

T. in h Day. 2 M.iy I.HIT.

Preferential Trade, (Mr. Asquith.)