Chapter VI: Mr. Chamberlain and Imperial Unity, I.—: Proportion of Foreign and Colonial Trade.

I. Proportion of foreign and Colonial trade—II. Exports—III. Colonial markets for national labour—IV. Canadian experience—V. Mr. Chamberlain’s offer to Canada—VI. Mr. Chamberlain’s offer to Australia.

Mr. Chamberlain’s main argument for the preferential tariffs, “without which the unity of the Empire cannot be maintained,” was that, “while our commerce with our Colonies is increasing,” that with foreign nations is decreasing,” not seeing that this argument really tells the other way, for if it is developing normally, to develop it artificially is superfluous. As a matter of fact its development is normal and continuous, and its proportion to our trade with foreign nations remains about the same. The sudden increase in our colonial exports in the last period is to be accounted for by the South African war.

Looking at the import and export statistics, we find:—

England only imports from the Colonies a fifth of what she needs. To tax foreign imports in the interests of the Colonies would be to tax four-fifths of her consumption for the advantage of one-fifth. Mr. Chamberlain and his satellites talk about the “Empire feeding itself,” but they take good care not to show how it is to be done in practice. Mr. Chamberlain has given up taxes on raw materials; again and again he says his moderate taxes on wheat, meat, and dairy produce are to be paid by the foreigner. The policy is to say you want to do something but refuse to employ the necessary means to that end, since they might cause some trouble and provoke some discontent. If Mr. Chamberlain really believed that his programme was necessary he would have used the means which Calvin and all real reformers have employed, and of which Voltaire says, “No one succeeds now by proposing anything easy; the hardest master is the most followed.”

He ought to have said to the Lancashire manufacturers and operatives, “To make the Empire self-sufficing you must sacrifice the £1,858,000,000 worth of cotton coming from abroad and be content with the £96,000,000 that came from our colonies and possessions”; to the House of Commons, “To make the Empire self-sufficing, every man, woman, and child in England must reduce his consumption of meat 60 per cent., and of wheat 70 per cent. I ask you to order ‘Imperial Fasting.’”