PREFERENTIAL TARIFFS.
A Letter to the 'Times,' June 5th, 1903.
Sir,—The policy recently outlined by Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain will, I trust, receive the serious and unprejudiced consideration of the people of this country. That it should be made the subject of party controversy, that it should be discussed on political platforms without regard to recent experience or present-day facts, and that the truth should be obscured by misrepresentation and exaggeration, as has been the case with the corn duty, would be deplorable. The decision which the people will be presently called upon to take is of vital moment to their own future, the future of the Empire, and the future of the world.
Customs duties the chief revenue of the ColoniesCommercial federation on the basis of free trade within the Empire is out of the question in the immediate future for the obvious reason that most of our Colonies raise the greater part of their revenues from customs duties, that British goods form a large proportion of their imports, and that it would take time for the Colonial Governments to substitute other sources of revenue which they now derive from duties on British goods. Sixteen years ago at the first Colonial Conference, Mr. Hofmeyr proposed that every part of the Empire, whatever its tariff might be on Imperial goods,
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