Page:What colonial preference means.djvu/21

19 their direct tendency to increase the cost of living in the United Kingdom, but there are other considerations which show their undesirability. Three-fourths of the import and export trade of the Mother Country is with foreign countries, and is to an immense extent carried on under the operation of the "most favoured clause" in commercial treaties. If we cease to be a Free Trade nation, is it to be supposed that Protectionist countries will extend the same favourable treatment to us? There is every probability, if not a certainty, that they would not do so. If this took place, not only would colonial preferences raise the cost of living here and the cost of production, but they would expose us to serious fiscal retaliation, and would further injure our export trade, which would be already jeopardised by the expense of manufacture being raised. Similar considerations apply, though in a smaller degree, to the self-governing Colonies. They have a large and growing trade with foreign countries, and this would be exposed to serious risks of retaliatory measures, such as those which have almost stopped the trade between Canada and Germany. This is the more important because our Empire already produces a good many commodities to a greater extent than its entire internal consumption, and there is a daily greater tendency in this direction. Among the articles already produced almost up to or beyond the requirements of inter-Imperial demands are: wool, tallow, hides, sheepskins, cheese, tin, tea, rice, jute, pepper, ginger, sago, indigo, palm and cocoanut oils, seeds and nuts, mahogany and teak, dye woods, some drugs, guttapercha, &c. These commodities would apparently be injured outside our market by our preferences, while they would not benefit within its borders. India is especially dependent on foreign countries, because the Empire cannot consume all its products. It is only certain articles that would