COMMERCIAL UNION WITH OUR COLONIES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2447, 17 March 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

COMMERCIAL UNION WITH OUR COLONIES.

In the coursc of a speech, delivered at Edinburgh last December Professor Black said:—ln conclusion, I may remark that although the subject, of Imperial federation with our colonies and dependencies is receiving much attention and absorbing a growing interest in the minds of those concerned with the futuro of our Empire, I am strongly of opinion t,lmt a commercial union between Great Britian and her colonies is of far greater importance, and would be the one thing of all others that would seal and confirm such a federation. We have at this moment an opportunity such as we have never had before, such as no other nation has ever had, to weld ourselves into one mighty ompire by the influence of mutual selfinterost, and that sense of security which the consciousness of indisputable supremacy curries with it. Under the influence of a well-conceived commercial uuion, we could defy the world ; wo could exist and prosper as if the surface of the earth were restricted to the British dominions. Where is the man who has seen the resources of our Eastern and Western Empire, Australasia, India, and Canada, who will say that Britain needs to consult the interests of any other nation whatever as to what will be her commercial or Imperial policy ? No nation will lend a hand or tender advieo unless it bo tempered by selfinterest, levelled against British interests. We have adopted the principles of Free Trade, and, as a nation, we believe in them more faithfully than we do in our Bibles, else we could not adhere to them in the mutilated form they assume through the Protection policy of all the world, oursolves being almost the solitary exception. We are passing through a commercial crisis which has already purged us of all the conceit and self-importance which attaches to rapidly-developed prosperity, and which is too apt to blind nations as well as individuals to their truo interests. We have come out of our trials possessed of more widsom, though we may bo poorer in material things. Wo have tried the method of allowing ;ill countries interested to choo.sc for themselves, Protection or no Protection, and it has miserably failed in its purposes. By our policy wo have forced our colonirs to act like foreign nations, and for dear existence to adopt Protection against ourselves as against the stranger. Wo have done in this what might have alienated them from us for ever. Wo have encouraged them to build up industries under tho shadow of Protection, which must always be while they exist on an unsound commercial basis, unless tempered by the fire of healthy competition. Let us dissipate thoso day dreams which have led up to that night of darkness in our commercial life through which wo are passing. Lot us form with our colonies one mighty family, powerful in the knowledge of our strength. If tho time does come when there shall be no more wars, it must bo when one empire has grown so mighty that the knowledge of it°> power is a sufficient guarantee of universal peace. Are we, the only nation which could ovor possibly hold that place, to nogleet tho goldon opportunity ? Are we, while wrangling about trifles, going to lone tho chance ? Are we deliberately to fall into a premature dotage, and spend the latter years of our national existence bewailing our lost opportunity ?