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ately if it will, institute for itself the undoubted benefits of such union for it is a world inspired at the present by the two essential bases of human union, community of material interests and community of national spirit.

The very prime question in the whole matter is the reason why there is not this free trade. And the answer is simple. Under present conditions any 'self-governing' colony finds itself free to adopt a policy of protection if it will. Consequently English merchants, manufacturers, or producers, no matter where they may build their castles within the Queen's dominions,' have at the present no guarantee that they shall enjoy freedom of exchange in regard to other portions of these same dominions. This is a statement that can be made of no other nation past or present, and it states a condition of things diametrically contrary to all accepted principles of national union.

It was a quarrel about duties that caused us the irreparable loss of the United States. And the very first action taken by the citizens of the New Republic was solemnly and irrevocably to institute perfect freedom of exchange within the frontiers of their own new Empire. Within those frontiers customs duties are to this day an impossibility. This eminently wise resolution has been one main element in the growth and prosperity of the United States. In all ages so soon as and whenever industry and commerce win for themselves a supremacy in the face of politics and war, at once extended freedom of commercial intercourse is sought as an essential to existence. A Customs Union was the first sign of a modern German nation. The jealous national independence' of the petty German states in the early years of this century soon discovered the fact that free interchange of products was the one great mutual interest none could afford to forego.

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Moreover, at the present moment, if we look to foreign nations, we see everywhere signs of a tendency towards 'customs union.' Italy is straining every nerve, by the curious means of an elaborate reciprocity, to bind up as many nations as possible in close intercourse with herself. Austria and Germany are contemplating closer customs union. The United States is eager to obtain secured footing in Europe. Spain is in earnest struggle to adjust the commercial connections of her colonial empire.

Thus the English nation stands at the present moment in a very singular position. It is an anomalous and a self-contradictory position, but yet one of those that recur in the history of nations that grow, and are not manufactured. The thoroughly English principle of selfgovernment has now developed to such perfection in the larger provinces of the English Empire, that the fiscal policy of each province is regulated by the local Parliament. But this development has had an unlooked-for, an unexpected issue.

There have arisen cases in provinces where this self-government

rules, in which this fiscal liberty has run to seed, and become fiscal license. The consequence is that what was originally a grant or concession of liberty to the individual has threatened, in these latter days, to become a liberty that is destructive of the same liberty granted to the other individuals.

It seems to me that so long as this nation remains a nation it is not only its interest, but its paramount duty, to see that the liberty of any of its component parts be not in any way infringed by the action of other parts. Moreover, the fiscal liberty originally granted was merely and simply the handing over, for geographical reasons, to each separated community of Englishmen their right to devise and supply the means to their own local government. To use this liberty for other purposes, such, for instance, as the discouraging the importation of particular products from some other English community, seems to me a direct subversion of this liberty, a distinct breach of the grounds on which the nation made the concession. And the proof of this is the fact that the using of it for these other unforeseen purposes at once interferes with the grant of this liberty to the other English communities.

Earl Russell, in one of his speeches about the time of these concessions, distinctly acknowledged this principle :

With regard to our colonial policy, I have already said that the whole system of monopoly is swept away. What we have in future to provide for is that there shall be no duties of monopoly in favour of one nation and against another, and that there shall be no duties so high as to be prohibitory against the produce and manufacture of this country.

Earl Russell, with penetrating foresight, saw the high commercial value our colonies were to be to us. And yet Canada has set up a high tariff, shutting out some of our products; and Victoria has done the same. It is, however, satisfactory to bear in mind that of our eight self-governing colonies, only these two have as yet stepped aside from the right path. Canada, however, proffers the somewhat valid excuse of special necessities, bred of her political contiguity to a foreign' state of peculiar commercial views, and Canada has taken the lead in demanding free-trade for all within the Empire. Victoria has no excuse but the fact that a crude but specious theory commends itself for the present to a majority of her manhood-suffrage rulers.

The strange anomaly of the position is brought into yet greater relief when we bear in mind that it is in one sense a distinct breach of the most favoured nation' clause in foreign treaties, for these treaties are made for all the dependencies of the British Crown en bloc.

The awkward question remains, why, when with self-government the nation conceded the obvious addition of fiscal liberty so far as the raising of revenue was concerned, the nation did not rigorously watch that any other fiscal action, which in any way curtailed the liberties of other sections of the nation and for purposes other than

revenue, should have been allowed or disallowed as a totally distinct question.

To the practical politician the interest centres in some adequate remedy; for the evil is accomplished: and any analysis of its demerits and its causes is only of use so far as it enlightens us in regard to its removal.

Inadequate information or thought leads many to forget that an authority still exists supreme over all others within the Empire. It is, indeed, only under the shield of this central authority that the various self-governing provinces enjoy this liberty to govern themselves. But these various self-governing bodies are constitutionally subordinate to the Imperial Parliament; the true explanation of their virtual independence is the fact that this Parliament has delegated, for the sake of obvious expediency, some of its powers to certain bodies of Englishmen, segregated by long distances of 'disassociating' ocean. But the natural tie of supremacy remains; sanctioned by the indisputable fact of the far greater material and human power congregated in the centre of the empire; and illustrated both by the eager willingness of the mother-country, on the first suspicion of danger, to spare no exertion to render adequate assistance to her oversea provinces, as well as by the wise habit of colonial statesmanship to look to the St. Stephen's Parliament for political inspiration and guidance.

Nevertheless self-government, implying self-supporting government, involves self-taxation, and so the self-adjustment of fiscal policies. Each community of Englishmen may tax themselves how they will to maintain their community in its corporate concerns; but to strain fiscal policies beyond the mere maintenance of government is a course of action legal only on the condition that it do not touch upon the independence of other provinces of the Empire, and so interfere with the grant of self-government to the other provinces.

It is against the equity no less than the interests of the Empire as a whole that any one band of Englishmen should impede the industrial progress of any other band. It is by the crediting aid and material support of the rest of the Empire that our Colonies spring into being and continue to rise in stable prosperity. England sent money, brains, skill, and muscle to Victoria, as she is now sending them to Natal. So is a prosperous community originated. Is that community to turn round and, with scant thanks, say, 'Now you have given us all we require, we will, if you please, keep all this for ourselves, and not allow the rest of the Empire to participate in the benefits it has conferred on us.' Communities of Englishmen, at all events, are not likely to proceed on these plans. They may, for the nonce, be led astray to consider they are doing themselves good by protection or other such policy, but they will recognise, at the same time, that not only their duty but also their interest lies in maintaining the spirit and VOL. X.-No. 53.

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the principles that have brought their race all its signal prosperity. It may be held, then, that with all the various grades of self-governing communities which form the British nation at the present time, some means of expression is surely attainable which shall make all acknowledge in their various degrees of constitutional spontaneity the essential utility and so the absolutely binding nature of freedom of exchange within the boundaries of the Empire.

The St. Stephen's Parliament takes direct fiscal charge of most of our colonies. Many of these have been with extraordinary success made into absolutely free ports. Such are the thriving entrepôts of commerce, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Gibraltar. There remain those groups of colonies possessing the right of spontaneous action in this matter-in Canada, in Australia, and in South Africa.

The three cases differ essentially from one another. In Canada we have a community of some four millions in political contiguity to an energetic foreign state of some fifty millions. This state, keeping closed its own markets against Canadian produce, attempted to flood Canadian markets. The Canadians, in natural pique, raised up the wall of a high tariff to stay this evil. This policy has been inspired by two motives, the one to force the United States to a policy of reciprocity at all events, if not of mutual free trade; the other simply to reserve the Canadian market at all events for Canadian produce. This latter is no doubt the policy most in favour with Canadians. They feel there is dangerous similarity between the products of Canada and of the States, these being the resultants of similar natural and human forces. They know the competition of the larger threatens to swamp that of the smaller. Canada feels that if she be shut out from her own market her case is hopeless; and yet the case is little mended by her shutting herself up in her own market. Happily for Canada she yet retains, if she will, the market of the world through England. England is eager to buy of Canada if Canada will only buy of England; and in this case there is no destructive competition because the products exchanged are the resultants of very diverse natural and human forces. Such a policy at once opens up the whole world as a market for Canadian produce. It enables Canada to compete, at insuperable advantage, with the United States for English custom. Englishmen will naturally purchase American produce where they can pay for it 'in kind.' Trade always flows in those channels where it meets with least obstruction. The ship that leaves England to load with wheat will always go by preference to that port where an outward cargo of English products can be sold with least obstruction.

The case of the Australias is of a totally different character. Here we have seven large colonies at the present existing in total fiscal independence of one another. But as these seven colonies fill up with population they feel more and more their geographical contiguity; and already, in addition to the increasing expense of col

lection along thousands of miles of border, all the evils incident to fettered intercourse are rapidly developing. At the recent conference in Sydney every colony, with the single exception of Victoria, strongly supported a movement in favour of a uniform and low tariff for all the Australasian colonies.

And Australians are looking further afield. They know that each one's staple products-wool, and wine, and gold, and wheat, and meat→ are exactly similar; the resultants of precisely similar natural and human forces. Thus, if they would achieve a right prosperity, they must exchange them with other commodities, the resultants of differing natural and human forces. This is necessary if they would secure the rewards due to their peculiar productions. Australians, both before and after the question of a customs union amongst themselves, will be ready to acknowledge the high benefits of assured freedom of exchange in the widespreading and varied market of the British Empire.

The case of South Africa just now occupies prominent public attention. The quarter-million of Europeans colonising South Africa have been and are unable to hold their own physically with the vast hordes of natives within and without the territory they have taken on themselves to civilise. The rest of the Empire aids them in this their uphill task. Were it not for this aid, the European element in South Africa would long ago have been driven into the sea. The people of England are paying to retain South Africa as a market for their wares and as an area of supply. They have the right, let us hope they will have the reason, to see to it that they are repaid by the mutual benefits of freedom of commercial intercourse. The Cape Colony, alone in South Africa, has fiscal independence of the Home Government. But the Cape is as much interested as any to secure permanent European supremacy over the African natives. This can only be secured by the permanence of English aid, and the price of this, a price the wise men at the Cape will, for their own interest, willingly pay, is the secured assurance of freedom of exchange with the rest of the Empire.

All the colonies must feel that commercial union is even more important for them than for England. They know they obtain, by means of continued connection with England, safety and credit; those two pillars of prosperity which alone support a community from sinking under hostile aggression or commercial restriction. But this connection is a tie which must depend in the main on identity of material interests. And this identity can only be preserved by the means of commercial union.

All these colonies do feel that commercial union is desirable. Indeed we have just witnessed in England what may be described as the first combined act of our colonies on approaching manhood; the first great move in Imperial politics that has originated in the