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her Colonies. We stopped short and came to no conclusion in respect to that, I think it is necessary, and it would be to the advantage of all concerned if we endorsed the recommendation that has been made by the Premiers of Australasia as to inquiry, whether that shall go on or stay our hands in respect of that. I think you said these matters had to go before your colleagues, and I would therefore move "that the Premiers assembled "endorse the recommendations of the Premiers of Australasia that the time "has arrived when inquiry should be made into the trade relations of the "mother country and its Colonies, and the trade of the Colonies with foreign "nations."
Sir Gordon Sprigg.] We do not understand it: we do not hear what is said. Mr. Seddon.] I am sorry for that. I find in the shorthand report of what I have been saying it is quite evident that you cannot hear what is said at this end of the table. I may say this, that the Premiers of Australasia recommended inquiry into the trade as between the mother country and the Colonies by way of Commission in such a manner as the Imperial authorities would determine. We passed the first resolution, the denouncement of the Treaties; we passed the second one; but the third which was in respect of this inquiry seems to have been lost sight of. I wish, therefore, that we should have the inquiry, and that the recommendation made by the Premiers of Australasia should be given effect to. That being, as I believe, what would disclose the true state of affairs. There is such a difference of opinion, and I assert most positively here that the manufacturers and merchants of the mother country are losing ground with the Colonies, and that being the case it would strengthen the hands, I hope, of the Secretary of State for the Colonies if we settled that that inquiry should be made.
Sir Gordon Sprigg.] You propose a Royal Commission here. Gentlemen of England to go and make inquiry.
Mr. Seddon.] I leave the details entirely to the Imperial authorities. What. ever the inquiry should be, let them accept the responsibility.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier.] But what would be your views, Mr. Seddon; what would be your own views as to the working out of your suggestion?
Mr. Seddon.] The working out. I should say the men ought to be some- what well acquainted with the manufactures of the mother country. There ought to be a commercial man, taking the merchants' side of the question, and if there is someone who had an inter-colonial knowledge he would be, on the Commission, the expert. They would have to take evidence; I believe Mr. Chamberlain and the officials here under him would have evidence here.
Sir Hugh Nelson.] I understand the Board of Trade are making inquiries. Mr. Seddon.] What I want to get is the report of a Commission.
You have the Chamber of Commerce; you have information coming from the Colonies by way of correspondence and despatches, but if you have the report of a Commission composed of men in whom the people had confidence, you get it in concrete form, and in such a way that it would have weight, and this would go to the public and help the Imperial Government should future action become necessary.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier.] You just stated a moment ago that you were satisfied England is losing trade with the Colonies.
Mr. Seddon.] Yes.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier.] In what way; is her trade displaced by other nations, or is it simply because she does not expand her trade as she might ?
Mr. Seddon.] She is expanding, she is maintaining her volume of trade, she is extending it to new Colonies, and she is losing it in the older established Colonies.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier,] She is displaced in older Colonies by the trade of other nations ?
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Mr. Seddon.] I unhesitatingly say so.
The trade of America with us was only 290,000l. in 1892, and it was 400,000l. last year.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier.] America? Mr. Seddon.] Yes.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier.] Is it not largely composed of articles which are not produced by England. Agricultural implements, for instance?
Mr. Seddon.] No. I say that the establishment of the Californian Mail Service with New Zealand and the new service there improved means of communication-has helped her considerably.
Sir Gordon Sprigg.] I should say I agree to some extent with what Mr. Seddon says, that England is losing some of the trade she had previously, and it gets into German hands in some cases, and the hands of other countries in Europe; but that seems to me to be the fault of the manufacturers and the merchants here. They do not seem to understand their own interests. I find in our Colony the Germans and the French to some extent are very active indeed. They send agents out there to press their own trade. England is resting on the past, and she has not the same active agents out there that these foreign countries have, and that is the reason she loses trade. I do not see how a Royal Commission is to improve that state of matters.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier.] Permit me to ask you what is it the Germans send you that used to be sent by England?
Mr. Escombe.] German beer.
Sir Gordon Sprigg.] As my right honourable friend says, German beer.
Sir George Turner.] Machinery.
Sir Gordon Sprigg.] Machinery, and a number of things. German manu- facturers are more wide awake to their interests in the Colonies than English manufacturers are. English manufacturers are resting upon the past. They do the trade, and they think they are going to have it always, and they do not seem to observe that Germany is pushing them out of the market.
Sir George Turner.] Would not this inquiry rouse them up a little bit, get them out of their lethargy?
Sir Gordon Sprigg.] Anything that would rouse them would be welcome.
Mr. Seddon.] That is my reason for proposing it, and it would direct their attention to the matter in such a way and in such a form that a beneficial effect would be the result.
The Earl of Selborne.] Do the Prime Ministers know that Sir Robert Giffen has devoted himself to this particular subject and has presented two reports on this very point?
Sir George Turner.] Unfortunately nobody will read such reports.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier.] Will they read this one?
Sir George Turner.] If it is a public inquiry reported day by day in the press I believe they would.
Mr. Escombe.] When this matter was raised, I understood Mr. Chamberlain to state that the amount of information that he had in the Colonial Office on this subject we had little idea of, and, that being the case, I understood that the matter passed over. If this proposal is made on behalf of the Australian Colonies, I have not a word to say in respect to it, but if it is made on behalf of a general meeting of the Prime Ministers, I say that I do not see what good can come from the Royal Commission in question. It concerns the persons concerned in the trade to look after their own interests, and not for Governments to try to help them to make their trade better than
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Sir Wilfrid Laurier.] I would not go so far as that. I think it is the duty of the Government, if they can, to do something in the way of directing trado; I think it is a very proper object of Government.
Sir John Forrest.] I think so too.
years,
The Secretary of State.] I confess myself that, unless we can define very clearly the object of the inquiry, I do not believe that any good would result. An inquiry in these very wide terms might occupy 10 and might result in 100 volumes of evidence and statistics, from which it would be absolutely impossible to pick out anything of use. What I take it Mr. Seddon wants is really a definite expression on the part of expert authorities having regard to the main facts of the case; for instance, if it were possible to report that in New Zealand German or American or other foreign goods were to a very considerable extent displacing English goods of a particular character, that would be a piece of information which would tend to waken the manufacturers concerned. I agree that if it were limited to definite statements of that kind and could be based upon well-ascertained and generally-agreed-upon facts it might be very useful, but I am inclined to think that that has already been done, at all events very recently if not up to the latest moment. Sir Robert Giffen's review of the course of foreign trade goes most carefully into the whole of the matter, and he had elaborately pointed out with tables and statistics the exact movement as far as that is ascertainable from existing figures. The difficulty always is that these inter- national figures do not agree, that they are not accepted by the parties who are interested, and are frequently reckoned as of no account in comparison with the experience of individuals, and therefore they do not carry with them the weight they otherwise might. Sir Robert Giffen's conclusions, I may say, were much more favourable to this country than the general impression which seems to exist and to which Mr. Seddon has given expression. His investiga- tions show that in regard, at all events to the value of the trade, we are losing much less than was supposed, and what we lost in one direction was made up in another. And to a certain extent that is confirmed by the general condition of things in this country. Take the present time: although there are always trades which are not doing well, there is no doubt that for the last few
years the prosperity of this country has been remarkable and almost universal, and yet it is the case that certain trades have left us altogether. In my opinion, that is largely because the manufacturers engaged in them have found more profit- able work to do; it is partly because they have not taken the trouble which they ought to take, and they may have cause to regret this whenever trade is bad in this country again. The matter is one of very great interest, but baving had considerable experience in the matter, having been myself at the Board of Trade for five years, I have not much confidence in good resulting from such an inquiry.
Mr. Seddon.] If the scope of the resolution is limited, as I say, we leave it entirely to the Imperial Government.
Mr. Kingston.] I am prepared to vote for any inquiry which would possibly lead to the formulation of suggestions for the fostering of mutually advan- tageous trade relations between England and her Colonies, and if, as I understand, the suggestion of Mr. Seddon is devised with that end, if there is any difficulty as regards its form it might be amended, and I should be delighted to vote for it.
Sir John Forrest.] The worst of these Royal Commissions is that they take so long.
Mr. Kingston.] We want to do what we can.
Sir John Forrest.] I believe the thing is already tabulated at the Board of Trade.
Mr. Seddon.] Every Commissioner of Customs has sent a report in answer to the despatch of Mr. Chamberlain, and every one of them says that he can only give the information for what it is worth. Nothing less than an inquiry will settle the matter definitely.
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The Secretary of State.] How can we possibly go beyond what is really the official information? We cannot get information that will in any way invalidate the statements of your own Commissioners of Customs.
Mr. Seddon.] The Commissioner of Customs to whom I alluded says, “I could only take the importers' accounts, but in London I could ascertain whether or not the entries are correct, as to where the goods are actually manufactured." As I say, part of the work is done in Belgium, a part done in Holland and other countries, and sent through London; they say that the sore spot is here in the city of London.
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The Secretary of State.] You could not follow that out in the case of every import during, say, a 12 months' period; it would be an endless task.
Mr. Seddon.] The Victoria experts say that very little would show that their estimate that they have made that 33 per cent. of the trade is foreign is correct, and that their actual return of 12 per cent. of foreigu manufactured goods which go to the Colony of Victoria is incorrect.
The Secretary of State.] Well, that I think we have already got; and I do. not think we can go beyond it; we have their statement and their information. A report by them, by each of the Colonies, or on behalf of each of the Colonies, of the existing state of trade between the mother country and the Colonies, would be a very useful document; we might invite each Colony to furnish such a report and publish them separately.
Mr. Seddon.] They can give you a report of course as they find things, but we know very well that that is altogether different from the report of a Commission having the power it would have of dealing with things. The gentleman whom you have named may have gone very carefully into the compilations, but still for all that the book is taken with hundrede of other works that are written on the same subject, and the public pay no attention to them.
The Secretary of State.] I think that a report by Sir Robert Giffen is a document of very high authority. It is always copied into the newspapers, and made the subject of leading articles in almost all of them.
The Earl of Selborne.] It is published as a parliamentary paper.
Sir Gordon Sprigg.] These statements have been published in the Colonial papers, as Mr. Chamberlain has just said; I have seen them myself.
The Secretary of State.] I think we had better not burden our minutes with a resolution, with all respect to Mr. Seddon.
Mr. Seddon.] I will not press it; I think myself it ought to be done.
The Secretary of State.] We will certainly consider it. I might talk it over with you, to define more clearly the extent.
Mr. Seddon.] If you will define it, we leave it to the Imperial Government. We shall be satisfied if you define it yourself.
The Secretary of State.] But I do not at present understand what you want. It would be no use holding an inquiry which, from the first, would not fulfil the objects you had in view.
Mr. Seddon.] I do not want to detain the members of the Conference too long, but there can be no question whatever as to the displacement of trade. As to what is the cause of the displacement, the Commission can inquire into
that.
Mr. Kingston.] With the view of improved trade with Britain?
Mr. Seddon.] Yes.
The Secretary of State.] I may say, I think, that we have already done that. We have sent out these circulars to all the Colonies. We have got very full returns, with ample explanation of the causes as they appear in the different Colonies for such displacement as has taken place. We have
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