Page:The empire and the century.djvu/148

 do not enjoy Free Trade with the Colonies; but the conditions of intercourse are not so far removed from that ideal as many suppose. Take, for instance, the following remarkable comparison from the second Inquiry Blue-book (p. 292):

All our Colonies, except Canada, give us better treatment than we receive from any great civilized State, and Canada gives us better treatment than we get from Argentina or Denmark. By these special facilities the Colonies give indirect assistance to our commerce, revenue, and fleet. They make, as it were, an invisible contribution to the maintenance of Empire. But unless a preferential system prevails, the process of strangulation will eventually be felt in the Colonies