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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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תון זווז ווד

c.o. 885

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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"the cultivation and extension of the mutual and

profitable interchange of their products;

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"Therefore resolved: That this Conference "records its belief in the advisability of a'Customs "arrangement between Great Britain and her Colanies, by which trade within the Empire, may «be placed on a more favourable footing than that

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which is carried on with foreign countries.

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"Further regolyed That until the Mother Country can see her way to enter into Customs arrangements...with. her Colonies it is desirable

that, when empowered so to do, the Colonies

“of Great Britain, or such of them as may be

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"disposed to accede to this view, take steps to "place each other's products in whole or in part E on a more favoured Customs basis than is accorded

"to the like products of foreign countries.

"Further resolved ;,. That for, the purposes of this Resolution the South African Customs Union be "considered as part of the territory capable of being "brought within, the scope of the contemplated “trade arrangements,” .

5. With the preamble of this Resolution the feeling, not, only of Her Majesty's Government, but of the entire population of this country, is, I need not say, in, hearty sympathy a sympathy to which no proposal clearly tending to promote the stability and progress of the Empire can appeal in vain.

6. The unanimity of sentiment which prevailed throughout the Conference on this point has been noted with pleasure by Her Majesty's Government, and it is with regret, therefore, that they feel com- pelled to express a grave doubt whether the fiscal policy the principle of which was, adopted by the majority of the Conference, as a means of securing this object, is really calculated to promote it. ...7. The Resolution does not advocate the estab- lishment of a Customs Union comprising the whole Empire, whereby, all the existing barriers to free commercial intercourse between the various members would be removed, and the aggregate Customs revenue equitably apportioned among the different communities. Such an arrangement would be in

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principle free fron objection, and, if it were practicable, would certainly prove effective in cementing the unity of the Empire and promoting its progress and stability. But it was, unanimously recognised by the Delegates that the circumstances of the Colonies make such a union, for the present,

at any rate, impossible; aud it is, therefore, unneces- sary to discuss the practical difficulties which stand

in the way of its realisation.

8.. The actual proposition is something essentially different, namely, the establishment of differential duties in this country in favour of Colonial produce, and in the Colonies in favour of the produce of the Mother Country. Commercial intercourse within the Empire is not to be freed from the Customs barriers which now impede it, but new duties, confined to foreign goods, are to be imposed where none exist at present, and existing rates of duty, now of impartial application, are to be either increased as against foreign trade or diminished in favour of British Colonial trade.

9. It was generally recognised at the Conference that this policy involves a complete reversal of the fiscal and commercial system which was deliberately adopted by Great Britain half a century ago, and which has been maintained and extended ever since. By a consistent adherence to this system

one duty after another has been swept away in this country, until, at the present day, the few import duties remaining are retained, either for revenue purposes alone on articles not produced here, or in

order to protect the Excise revenue.

10. A differential duty is open to all the objections

from the consumer's point of view which can be urged

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against a general duty, and, while it renders necessary

the same restrictions on trade, it has the additional disadvantage of dislocating trade by its tendency to divert it from its regular and natural channels.'

11. These general objections to the policy advo- cated are sufficiently serious, and there are others, no less serious, which How from the existing conditions under which the trade of the Empire is distributed.

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