FOREIGN AND COLONIAL TARIFFS
117
do not enjoy Free Trade with the Colonies; but the conditions of intercourse are not so far removed from that ideal as many suppose. Take, for instance, the following remarkable comparison from the second Inquiry Blue-book (p. 292):
| Estimated Average 'ad valorem' Equivalent of the Import Duties levied by the Undetermined Foreign Countries and British Possessions on the Principal Manufactures exported from the United Kingdom. | |||
| Foreign Tariffs. | Colonial Tariffs. | ||
| Per Cent | Per Cent | ||
| Russia | 131 | Canada (preferential tariff) | 17 |
| Spain | 76 | New Zealand (preferential) | 9 |
| United States | 71 | Australia | 6 |
| Austria-Hungary | 35 | South Africa (preferential) | 6 |
| France | 34 | India | 3 |
| Argentine Republic | 28 | ||
| Italy | 27 | ||
| Germany | 25 | ||
| Sweden | 23 | ||
| Greece | 19 | ||
| Denmark | 18 | ||
| Roumania | 14 | ||
| Belgium | 13 | ||
| Norway | 12 | ||
| Japan | 9 | ||
| Turkey | 8 | ||
| Switzerland | 7 | ||
| China | 6 | ||
| Holland | 3 | ||
All our Colonies, except Canada, give us better treatment than we receive from any great civilized State, and Canada gives us better treatment than we get from Argentina or Denmark. By these special facilities the Colonies give indirect assistance to our commerce, revenue, and fleet. They make, as it were, an invisible contribution to the maintenance of Empire. But unless a preferential system prevails, the process of strangulation will eventually be felt in the Colonies them-
