Page:What colonial preference means.djvu/22

20 benefit by preference, and it would pass the wit of man to draw up a tariff that would give equal advantages to the different States of the Empire. Under Preference the supplies of these goods would flow in a concentrated stream to Great Britain, and, with the increasing supplies, competition here would sooner or later deprive the colonists of any benefit that preferences might have given them at first. One curious result of preference would be to raise the cost of living in the Colonies themselves. If a price beyond what is current elsewhere were established, say, for wheat, colonial growers would expect, and get, the same price at home, thus raising the cost of bread. The surplus produce of wheat would all come here to obtain the higher English price, so that another colony—South Africa, for instance—which imports wheat would have to choose between buying in British Colonies at a higher price or in outside markets at a lower one. Of course, it would choose the latter—a strange result of Preference.

In connection with possible retaliation by foreign countries, the great re-export trade of the Kingdom has to be remembered; our total re-exports in 1906 were over £85,000,000, of which nearly £76,000,000 went to foreign countries. A very large proportion of these goods originally came from British possessions, though the exact amount cannot be given, because the places of origin are not given by the Board of Trade for our re-exports. Nothing would be easier than for foreign countries to stop this trade, and this would inflict a direct injury upon our Colonies as well as on ourselves.

The general results of our figures show that colonial preferences would probably lead to a new charge of