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of the people of Great Britain worse than it is, I do not think that I should advocate it, however much it might be desired. Ido not like your absolutely ignoring the whole of the British Colonies excepting India. India cannot be placed, in dealing with a matter of this kind, in the same category as the self-governing Colonies. India is not a self-governing Colony in the sense in which we arc, and therefore I put on one side to a very large extent the remarks made by the representative of that country. When India is prepared to improve and keep up the position of her people, or if I may so term them, her numerous people, to a fair state of living, a fair wage, and to place them nearly in fair comparison with ours —1 do not say quite—with all other white people of the self-governing Colonies, then and then only is the time when we can make comparison. Mr. MORLEY : What do you mean by " payment " ? Sir WILLIAM LYNE : They get Aid. a day on board the boats against our men's ss. With the P. and 0. Company they get Aid. a day or thereabouts and our men get ss. or thereabouts in our country. When Sir James Mackay speaks of tariffs being no barrier to the exports of India, I can well understand it, because the labour of India is so miserably paid that it does not matter much what tariff it is, they can overcome it; but heaven protect our white self-governing Colonies from our labourers• ever being brought down to the condition of the Indian people. I therefore cannol bring myself to compare the conditions of India with the conditions of either Canada, Australia, or South Africa. I do not wish to say much with reference to the speech that has been delivered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because if I were to talk, or we all were to talk, for the next six months, evidently, from the decisive way in which the arguments have been met, we would not have the slightest hope of altering the position. I regret very much that we have come all this distance —my Prime Minister and myself—to get such a reply from the Government. It is to my mind one of those things that will not and does not help to draw together the British Empire. In the onset of the Chancellor's speech, he referred to the unique effect of Great Britain's attitude and her laws and her administration as bringing together and keeping together the peoples of her self-governing Colonies extending over the world. Ido not think the Chancellor's statement will help that position. I have prepared several notes, and I do not intend to go much beyond them at present. Perhaps I may have a reply from my friend, Mr. Lloyd George, but it is not for me, after the reply that has been received on behalf of the Government, to feel that we can do more than, if it is proposed, and I hope it will be proposed, pass a resolution in favour of what we have come all this distance for, and then leave it in the position, almost, but not quite, that it was left in in 1902. I heard the remarks made by General Botha when he spoke, and, I think, also the representative for Newfoundland, Sir Robert Bond, in reference to leaving the position exactly as it was by the resolution of 1902. The position has advanced. Under that resolution I find one subsection was : " That the Prime Ministers present at the Conference "undertake to submit to their respective Governments at the earliest "opportunity the principle of the resolution, and to reepiest them to take " such measures as necessary to give effect to it." Well, in Australia, which is the wealthiest and the first of all the Dependencies of Great Britain, we have done it. We have not only done it but we have done more. We have appealed to the country partly on this question, and as far as I can judge at the present time from the election only last December we have

Tenth Day. 2 May 1907.

Preferential Trade. (Sir W. Lyne.)