COLONIAL PREFERENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 135, 16 September 1910, Page 4

COLONIAL PREFERENCE.

An immense deputation of farmers lately appealed to the Canadian Premier, and complained that the system of protection in vogue did not provide return, and hampered the progress of Canada. They did not ask any' protection for their producta. 'I hey' were willing that all should be in the fret list, and they looked wbh d : »fayo'- i,n any fiscal or preferential tariflf tmd.'jg to enhance the cost of living to Uririsn artisans and laborers. They desired every possible facility for the free exchange of prairie food products for tlie products of the congested factory districts of Great Britain. Duties should be levied if or revenue only. As they were now levied they created a class whost interests were inimical to those of t!»e masses of ihe people." Mr. Balfour, commenting, said that Canada had been making commercial treaties; she had entered a "career of independent fiscal negotiations"; she was fighting for her own hand. All the colonies would do likewise unless we gave them preference, and that "tended! in the direction of separation." The inevitable conclusion from that argument is that Mr. Balfour and the Imperial Preferentialists object to the colonies carrying on fiscal negotiations," and shaping their fiscal policy to suit their own interests; and that the purpose of Imperial preference is to destroy the fiscal independence of the colonies and their freedom to follow the course they think most profitable to themselves. All. this was implied from the first in colonial preference. One thing is certain. The dominions will control thenown affairs in the way that is most payable to them and it is inevitable that in Canada, Australia and New Zealand the controllers must be the prima! producers and not the users of raw material.