Page:The empire and the century.djvu/423

 about half consists of non-dutiable articles which could hardly come from elsewhere—certainly not from Britain, no matter how large a preference she might enjoy. But trade begets trade, and an English manufacturer of a certain line of machinery told the writer only the other day that he found it difficult to get orders in the Dominion: in such matters, he said, the Canadians are initiative, and prefer to supply themselves from the United States. There can be no doubt that, in spite of sentiment and adverse tariffs, a natural affinity in matters commercial exists between the two neighbouring peoples. This, however, cannot be held to invalidate the position that, in regard to the Colonies generally, it is the interest and duty of the Mother-land to make every legitimate effort to establish the closest possible commercial union. It stands to reason that the Colonies must increase in population more rapidly than other parts of the world, and the experience of the next twenty-five years is certain to show that it was worth while now to try to make their trade flow in home channels. It is from this point of view that the advocates of tariff reform and revision feel justified in arguing that it should be made an item in a well-considered system of constructive and progressive Imperial statesmanship.

And a closer commercial union—even if secured by treaties made with each of the Colonies separately—could not, after all, be scouted as a 'squalid' basis for the Imperial consolidation which is so much in men's thoughts to-day. In a recent article in the Monthly Review (January, 1905), Mr. Solano ably sustains the thesis that the history of British Imperial Dominion is practically one of the spread of civilization through economic expansion. 'To whatever accident the British owe their descent upon the various continents of the world, this fact is clear—that they have remained established upon them; that they continue, to-day, to spread over the face of them, by the force and virtue of economic activity.' The next chapter in the history of this economic activity, considered as a dynamic force