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་། ། ། ་།
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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Reference :-
C.O. 885
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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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Enclosure in No. 6.
MEMORANDUM indicating the AMENDMENTS required in the Imperial Statute 36 Vict. c. 22, in order to allow the AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES to enter into TRADE ARRANGEMENTS with the other BRITISH COLONIES.
By the Constitution Acts granted to the several Australasian Colonies, they were prohibited from making any preferential concessions in regard to Customs Duties to any place or country.
This state of things was, to a certain degree, amended by an Imperial Statute in 1873, 36 Vict. c. 22, which gave power to the various Australasian Colonies to enter into The following extract from the Act defines the trade arrangements with each other. present position :--
"The Legislature of any one of the Australian Colonies shall, for the purpose of carrying into effect any agreement between any two or more of the said Colonies or between any one or more of the said Colonies and New Zealand, have full power from time to time to make laws with respect to the reinission or imposition of duties upon the importation into such Colony of any article the produce or manufacture of, or imported from, any other of the said colonies, or the produce or manufacture of, or imported from, New Zealand. Provided always, that for the purpose aforesaid, no new duty shall be imposed upon, and no existing duty shall be remitted as to the importation into any of the Australian Colonies of any article the produce or manufacture of any particular country which shall not be equally imposed upon, or remitted as to, the importation into such Colony of the like article the produce or manufacture of any other country. Pro- vided further, that no duties shall be levied upon articles imported into any of the Australian Colonies for the supply of Her Majesty's land or sea forces, nor shall any duty be levied or remitted contrary to, or at variance with, any Treaty or Treaties for the time being subsisting between Her Majesty and any foreign Power.”
It will be seen that, while the different Colonies of Australasia can now make arrange- ments with one another, they cannot grant any tariff concessions to any other Colony or country without making such concessions general in their effect. Consequently, without further legislation, the Australasian Colonies are not able to make a commercial arrangement involving concessions with any of the cther Colonies of the Empire.
Negotiations are in contemplation by which closer commercial relations may be created between Canada and Australasia, but no arrangement of the kind can be carried out satisfactorily until the operation of the Imperial Act of 1873 before referred to is extended in the direction indicated.
It is submitted that the provisions of the Act of 1873 should be extended so as to enable the Australasian Colonies to grant tariff concessions to the other British Colonies. All the Colonies of Australasia. the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, and the Dominion of Canada, desire that the Act of 1873 should be amended accordingly. It is urged that the required legislation should be introduced and passed at an early period during the present session, inasmuch as a convention of representatives from the various British Colonies is to be held at Ottawa in the month of June next, and the question of inter- colonial trade relations will form one of the subjects for deliberation.
The existing commercial Treaties between this country and foreign Powers do not prevent the suggested legislation being carried out.
5924.
No. 7.
THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR CANADA to COLONIAL OFFICE. (Received April 6, 1894.)
DEAR SIR ROBERT MEADE.
Victoria Chambers, 17, Victoria Street, London, S.W.,
April 4, 1894.
I SEND you a cutting from the last issue of the "Colonies and India" with reference to inter-colonial trade arrangements of a preferential character.
The position of the matter is stated very accurately and concisely in the article in question, and I think it will be interesting to you and to Lord Ripon.
The subject has been discussed on more than one occasion in the House of Commons here, and if you will refer to the speech of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach (when he was
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President of the Board of Trade) on March 23rd, 1891, you will find that he admitted that the Belgian and German Treaties did not prevent commercial arrangements either between the Colonies themselves or between the Colonies aud foreign countries. I enclose you an extract from the speech.
You will, therefore, at once see that the extension of the principle of the Act of 1873 (Vict. 36. c. 22) does not conflict in any way with the objectionable clauses in the Belgian and German Treaties.
Believe me, &c., (Signed)
Enclosure 1 in No. 7.
"THE COLONIES AND INDIA."
London, Saturday, March 31, 1894.
CHARLES TUPPER.
THE COLONIES AND COMMERCIAL TREATIES,
A good deal has been written recently in reference to the position of the Colonies in the matter of inter-colonial trade arrangements of a preferential character, especially in connexion with the visit of the Hon. Robert Reid, the Minister of Defence of Victoria. It has been mentioned that the first difficulty the Victorian Government have to meet in their endeavours to arrange reciprocal tariff concessions with other parts of the Empire is the existence of the treaties of commerce between the United Kingdom and the German Zollverein and Belgium. Now, as a matter of fact, neither of these treaties in them- selves stand in the way of an understanding of this kind between Canada and Australasia, or between any of the self-governing Colonies. They simply stipulate that Belgian and German goods shall be admitted into the Colonies on the same terms as goods from Great Britain. The Colonies are perfectly free, therefore, subject to their local legislation, to make any preferential agreements they wish among themselves. The Belgian and German treaties only come into the question should any concessions between the different Colonies be extended to the United Kingdom. The clauses in the Belgian and German conventions which bring about that unsatisfactory state of things are altogether apart from, and in addition to, the general most-favoured-nation clauses which the treaties contain. It is true that if, at present, any of the Colonies granted tariff concessions to the United Kingdom, they would have to be given to Belgium and Germany also, and, under the most-favoured-nation clauses in various existing treaties, to many other countries as well; but this only applies to concessions to Great Britain.
No parallel Victoria
say,
There is also a slight misapprehension in regard to another matter. exists between the position of any two States of the American Union and, and New South Wales, as is sometimes inferred. The Federal Government in the United States deals with all fiscal matters, and the different States have nothing to do with such subjects. New South Wales and Victoria are, however, entirely independent of each other in this respect, and have full control over their local fiscal affairs. The Australasian Constitutions originally prevented any concessions from one Colony to another, unless they were extended to all countries. This was modified by an Imperial Act in 1873 (Vict. 36. c. 22), which enabled all the Australasian Colonies to make such preferential arrangements. It is evident, therefore, that the Imperial Government do not regard the Belgian and German treaties of 1862 and 1865 respectively as interfering with intercolonial commercial relation. All that is wanted is to extend the Act of 1873 so as to apply not only to the Colonies of Australasia, but to agreements between any or all of them and the other self-governing Colonies. This would simply be an enabling Act; but it would permit of an arrangement either by treaty or by legislation between the Colonies of Australasia and Canada or any of the Colonies.
Some people consider that Her Majesty's Government have been ill-advised in not again asking the Belgian and German Governments to agree to a modification of the with away treaties ("those unfortunate treaties," Lord Salisbury calls them), so as to do the clauses which prevent preferential arrangements between the Colonies and the Mother-country; and much might be said in support of that view. The treaties have been accurately described as interfering in the domestic affairs of the Empire. If Belgium and Germany were given the alternative of modification or abrogation, there is A 4