on
concerned to say that. It is also open for the representative of the
Colonial Office in the House of Commons to say that, too, on their
behalf.

But it will no longer be open, I think, for any such defence to be
offered when sums of money, or what would be regarded as equivalent
to sums of money, have actually to be voted in the House of Commons
through the agency of these taxes for the purpose of according
preference to the different Dominions of the Crown, and I think
members will say, "If you complain of our interference, why do you
force us to interfere? You have forced us to consider now whether we
will or will not grant a preference to this or that particular
Dominion for this year. We say we are not prepared to do so unless or
until our views upon this or that particular internal question in that
Dominion have been met and agreed to." I see a fertile, frequent, and
almost inexhaustible source of friction and vexation arising from such
causes alone.

There is a more serious infringement, as it seems to me, upon the
principle of self-government. The preferences which have hitherto been
accorded to the Mother Country by the self-governing States of the
British Empire are free preferences. They are preferences which have
been conceded by those States, in their own interests and also in our
interests. They are freely given, and, if they gall them, can as
freely be withdrawn; but the moment reciprocity is established and an
agreement has been entered into to which both sides are parties, the
moment the preferences become reciprocal, and there is a British
preference against the Australian or Canadian preferences, they become
not free preferences, but what I venture to call locked preferences,
and they cannot be removed except by agreement, which is not likely to
be swiftly or easily attained.

Now I must trench for one moment upon the economic aspect. What does
preference mean? It can only mean one thing. It can only mean better
prices. It can only mean better prices for Colonial goods. I assert,
without reserve, that preference can only operate through the agency
of price. All that we are told about improving and developing the
cultivation of tobacco in South Africa, and calling great new areas
for wheat cultivation into existence in Australia, depends upon the
stimulation of the production of those commodities, through securing
to the producers larger opportunities for profit. I say that unless
preference mea