519

A.—s

I come now to the second part. You want to create an Imperial fund. If Mr. Deakin permits me with all deference to say so this is a very hazy proposition to create a general fund for certain purposes, indefinite, undetermined, and as to which we shall have to cudgel our brains as to how to employ the money thus raised. I prefer to come directly to the point. There are Imperial projects of magnitude which we can consider. Cables are one; improvement in navigation is another. If we agree on this particular point before we separate that it would be an advantage to create more cables and add to the cables we have already, or extend the Imperial cable we have. For my part, I am quite ready to consider the proposition that each of those interested at all events —perhaps South Africa or other parts would not be —should agree to contribute a certain amount. Or if you have a scheme, for instance, for improving navigation and communication between all parts of the British Empire, a scheme which seems to me most worthy of consideration, it would be a stronger bond of union at the present time than anything we could devise. If we had a rapid up-to-date line of communication by which we combined the whole of the British Empire here represented, it would do more towards unity than anything you can devise. For anything of that sort I am prepared to say—and the people of Canada will be ready I am sure to say so too —that we will put our hands into our pockets for the promotion of such an object, as would Australia also, and New Zealand I believe. Therefore I say it is better to come directly to an issue, and take the cable issue, say, this year, another issue next year, and so on. But I cannot agree with the proposal of Mr. Deakin, and I give my view in all frankness on this matter. Sir JOSEPH WARD : Lord Elgin, and gentlemen, my sympathies are entirely in the direction Mr. Deakin is urging, and I want, with him, to do everything in my power to assist in the bringing about of preferential trade within the Empire, because—and I do not want to go over the same ground again—l think it is in the best interests of the Empire. The more I think of it, the more I do not like the idea of a surtax, for more than one reason. Why? Under this proposition, if 1 per cent, surtax were levied, it would bring from New Zealand 20,000/. a year. From the point of view of assisting in bringing New Zealand into closer union with the Old Country, in my view, 20,000/. a year is a mere drop in the bucket, and quite inadequate, so instead of 1 per cent, as our contribution we would probably have to have 5 per cent, or 2\ ncr cent, to produce something greater, whether that be 50,000/., 60,000/., 70,000/., or perhaps 100,000/. a year, to do what we require to do in connection with the important matter of shipping connection alone in order to bring our country closer to the Old World. Once I, as representing New Zealand, commit myself to this proposition of Mr. Hofmeyr's, or rather Mr. Deakin's altered one, T am going to embark in an unknown future undertaking as far as New Zealand goes, with the undoubted sequence to this proposal of a higher rate than 1 per cent, being imposed upon our country. I am not prepared at present to do that, In New Zealand, we have had some experience of surtaxes. T recall right back in my own early history in Parliament in our own country the fact that the Government of that time imposed a 21 per cent, overriding duty upon all articles imported into the country, dutiable and free, for the purpose of assisting the revenue generally. It was a most disliked tax. Though there was not universal approval given to it, and no departure from the principle of those who held Free Trade views, it was looked upon probably as an expedient and at the time necessary thing to do, but it had not been in operation twelve months when all sides were very strongly opposed to it, and the Government of the day had to take the tax off. It was one of the first things the Government of which I was a member then, and am now, had to remove. Having supported the putting into operation of that surtax in New Zealand, it was

Fourteenth Day. 9 May 1907.

Imperial Surtax on Foreign 1M l'( )RTS. (Sir Wilfrid Laurier.)