420

A.—s

As at another part of his address Mr. Churchill alluded to preference as implying what almost amounted to a revoting of any reciprocity each year, another allusion of his mentioned the discussion of recpirocity granted to some particular Dominion. We have not got far on the road of preference in this Conference for many reasons supplied by Ministers themselves, but if we had reached any practical propositions, I do not think any member would have been heard proposing and defending a special grant to each particular Dominion. Sir Wilfrid Laurier has already touched upon this point, incidentally, when he spoke of the scope of Canadian preference, and contrasted it with the more discriminating preferences of Australia and New Zealand. But no one, so far as I am aware, has had in view a particular negotiation with each particular Dominion. What we all had in contemplation, if preference had approached the practical stage, was a general agreement of a simple character at first, which might in time be supplemented and extended. Its enlargement would be based on experience, but, so far as I am aware, no one has projected a separate and independent agreement to be improvised now between the Mother Country and each of the self-govern-ing Colonies. If the argument of the Under-Secretary with reference to the grave Parliamentary risks inherent in dealings with reciprocity or financial proposals is sound it applies already with practically equal force wherever preference has been given. I do not profess an intimate acquaintance with the course of Canadian public affairs, but Sir Wilfrid Laurier will correct me if I am wrong in stating, that so far as I am able to follow Parliamentary proceedings in his country, none of the disastrous consequences which Mr. Churchill painted as inseparable from all tariff adjustments have yet ensued. lam not aware that Sir Wilfrid Laurier has found that every year the preference granted to Great Britain, though it is still unreciprocated, provoking the angry contention, occasioning the great friction, and involving the fierce animadversions upon those concerned in it, which are to accrue in this country if his theory were true. Sir WILFRID LAURIER : It was in the first year, but it has abated a lot. Dr. SMARTT : As it would do here. Mr. DEAKIN :As it would do, I take it, in every other country. Any new course permits misapprehensions and invites challenge in the first place. It has only been partly tried for a short time and is not fully appreciated. Every first essay is likely to call for some amendment to which criticism is properly directed. But listening to the very forcible utterances of the Under-Secretary, one naturally looks to actual experience to discover the long chain of very hazardous and serious consequences which he insists must flow in this country whenever these are to be criticised, or upon which comment is possible every year. What is our experience after the granting of preferences? In Canada, New Zealand, and, with a shorter experience, South Africa, we have budgets as controversial, legislators just as sensitive to public opinion, oppositions just as hostile and eager to find material, sections just as able to make use of any weapon in the armoury of parliamentary procedure. We have seen all those forces in play in the politics of Canada for a number of years and in the other Dominions for a certain number of years, without their furnishing us with any single instance of any exceptional abuse' or injury due to the existence of their preferences, or indeed of their tariffs. Whence the sweeping conclusions can be drawn as to the effects upon Parliament of the existence of financial relations of this

Twelfth Day. 7 May 1907.

Preferential Trade. (Mr. Deakin.)