A—s

459

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE : I thought I would take advantage of this opportunity of putting this to you. Mr. DEAKIN: Certainly. I wish I had at hand more detailed knowledge. Mr. LLOYD GEORGE : As regards the United Kingdom, the interests of British shipping are not thought to be prejudiced by the very small amount of foreign shipping which enters into our coasting trade. The tonnage of foreign vessels with cargoes in the United Kingdom coasting trade is less than 1 per cent, of the total—half a million tons out of a total of 65,000,000. Still less are our interests menaced by the few tons of shipping of the countries which exclude our ships from their own coasting trade (only oneeighth per cent, of the total). Apart, altogether from the question of reservation, it is clear that the assimilation of our world-wide " interImperial trade " to mere coasting trade, could not be effected without a considerable departure, not only from our own long-established practice, but also from the practice of other nations except, perhaps, Russia and the United States. The term " coasting " voyage, used in its natural sense, implies a voyage from one port to another in the same country without the vessel touching for purposes of trade at any intermediate port not belonging to that country, and if this definition be accepted as accurate, there would seem to be grave difficulties in the way of the extension of regulations affecting such voyages to long oversea voyages, involving, in many cases,calls at intermediate foreign ports. Mr. DEAKIN : That would apply to the request about the Pacific Islands being treated as coastwise trade in Australia. Mr. LLOYD GEORGE : Are you going to bring that before the Conference ? Mr. DEAKIN : 1 understand that was referred from your Conference to us. Mr. LLOYD GEORGE : I had to rule that out at the Shipping Conference. Surely, the question of the Pacific is one for the whole Empire to discuss, because Canada would be just as much interested as Australia would be in the Pacific. 1 felt that we could not, especially in the absence of the Canadian representative, discuss the question of the Pacific. Passing from general considerations to methods of action, it is clear that the only method of closing the inter-Imperial trade to foreign vessels, or any class of them, is by Imperial legislation or Order in Council. It is needless to say that such a measure would attract gieat attention, and probably would be regarded as a sign of decadence and of fear on our part. Countries which reserve their trade are influenced by the fact that they cannot compete on eaual terms with British shipping. Every country trying to overtake us in the race will be proportionately encouraged to greater exertions by a step suggesting that we cannot hold our own against them on equal terms. Lastly, the purely treaty difficulty is not to be lightly set aside. The magnitude and nature of this difficulty differs much according to whether the

Thirtoenili Day, 8 May 1907.

Coast « mi Trade.