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confidence it ignores the most potent warnings, trusting to blunder through somehow or other, absolutely unconscious of any other idea than ultimate success. This has almost, without exception, characterised each war, as well as each serious crisis, in which it has been involved. It may be possible that this feeling of self-complacency is the real stumbling block in the way of fiscal reform. There lias been a growing uneasy feeling for some years past that all is not well with British trade, but the very thought that the fiscal system has outlived its period of usefulness is intolerable to those who have worshipped at its shrine. In war, a disaster of to-day may be retrieved by the victory of to-morrow, since the reserve strength of the nation is available in all its power for the recovery of its honour and prestige, but with commerce the disasters of to-day cannot be so readily compensated for by any victory of to-morrow. Once the tide of trade has drifted into other channels, be sure that it has also carried with it much of the reserve strength of the nation. Bearing in mind t he-implicit blind faith of the many in the policy of free imports, it is not difficult to imagine one of its adherents standing beside Macaulay's New Zealander on a broken arch of London Bridge amidst ruins of our Empire, self-confident and self-satisfied that in spite of wreck and ruin his faith remains supreme. I have just a word or two more. In reference to some remarks that were made this morning by the Chancellor, to which i slightly referred previously in regard to the preference that Australia had commenced to give, 1 wish to point this out, that ours I believe at the present moment is the lowest average tariff known in the British Dominions where there is a tariff at all, that is for Protection, and it is much lower than Canada, I think Canada's is 10 per cent, higher than ours, or thereabouts. Ours averages about 15, while, I think, Canada's averages about 25, or something like that. Sir WILFRID LAURIER : Between 25 and 26. Sir WILLIAM LYNE : I think so. Therefore when we offered 10 per cent, preference —that is the average of wdiat was offered over the whole of our tariff —that is a very much larger proportion than offering 10 per cent, on a tariff such as that of the United States or Canada, or any other place. We went to the extreme limit, I may call it, of offering 10 per cent, when our average is only 15 —that is, that Great Britain would have the advantage of all our markets at 15 per cent., while the States would.have to pay us the 25, or 10 per cent, more; and surely if Great Britain's manufactures are so much superior, as they were described this morning, to those of America and other parts of the world, with the 10 per cent, it ought to be a pretty good thing for them. That 10 per cent, is applicable on an immense volume of importation that we do not produce to-day in our manufacture in Australia. To give you an idea—l will not detain you to give you every item —our imports of steel and iron into Australia average 7,000,000/. a year, and a very large proportion of that conies from the United States. We want all we can get from Great Britain, and I want to tell you a little incident. You will bear with me for a moment, but this is really emblematical of what Great Britain is not doing. At the present moment in Canada (that is not a foreign country, and therefore we do not complain of them), in the United States especially, and in Germany, they adapt their methods with a great measure of foresight as to our requirements that they absolutely kill the British trade. There was a place called the Clyde Works-manufactory near Sydney, where they were supposed to manufacture farming machinery, principally for Australia. I used to see coming from Melbourne as I went over, train loads of

Tenth Day. '_' May I HOT.

I' i; i: 1 -1: i Trade. (Sir W. Lyne.)

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