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Mr. DEAKIN : No one has begged you to do so yet. I have not heard it. Mr. LLOYD GEORGE : Yes, that is the proposal as it has been presented to vs —the proposal as presented to us by Mr. Chamberlain — and we are bound to take the Preferential suggestion in the form in which its great champion has presented it to us. Mr. DEAKIN : Did he put it as a proposal? Mr. LLOYD GEORGE : I say this, if it had not been for the great and distinguished position of Mr. Chamberlain, nobody would have dreamt of giving it serious consideration here for that reason It is not because we would not consider anything that would bring our Colonies nearer to us or would help the Colonies, but because we refuse to contemplate the idea of making the food of these poor people more difficult to get. Mr. DEAKIN : Did Mr. Chamberlain ever admit that any proposal he fathered was to raise the price of food ? Mr. LLOYD GEORGE : No. Mr. DEAKIN : That is the point. Mr. LLOYD GEORGE : No, but Mr. Chamberlain is much too astute an advocate ever to admit that. Mr. DEAKIN : I understand you were referring to somebody who was begging you to increase the price of food of these poor people, and, as far as the outer dominions are concerned, am not aware that any such request has been made. Mr. LLOYD GEORGE : I simply quoted figures to show that the effect of a 2s. duty on corn, was to add 2s. to the price of that commodity to the people who purchased it, This is not 2s. added to the price for the poor man who buys it almost in slices; it is 2s. added to the price of the merchant, who has got to get his profit upon that 2s. The inference I drew was that if it meant 2s more in Germany, and 2s. more in France, the same cause would produce the same effect here, and it would nean 2s. more here as well. Mr. DEAKIN : Subject to the free colonial competition for which you allow. Mr LLOYD GEORGE : I said that too. I have been absolutely fair. I did allow for it before I drew my inference, because I want to be absolutely fair. Ido not want to exaggerate the case against the Colonies by one iota; on the contrary, I wish it were possible for us to do something to meet you on any lines which would lead to increased trade. I am only presenting to you really the difficulties which present themselves to our minds, and that is what you want to knew when you come to consider a problem of this kind! Dr. JAMESON : It is really again in two words, the difference between Preference and Protection. You have been arguing against Protection, and we quite agree it would affect the poor man. Sir Joseph Ward, at the very beginning of his argument upon this question, made the statement which we all endorse : " If this is going to increase the cost of living to the poor people

Eleventh Day. 6 May 1907.

Preferential Trade.