The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1910-07-23
COLONIES ARE
GREAT NATIONS
Balfour Outlines the Nation 4
Policy Toward Her Deepen
denotes in Commons

London, July 23.-In the house of
commons today, former Premier Bal
four took the last opportunity before
the next imperial conference to raise
the question Of imperial preference.
He remarked the consistency where
with every colonioI statesman since
Canada had made the first appeal for
fiscal arrangement in 1897, had
pressed on the mother country the
one policy and declared that the view
of these great colonial statesmen
were not merely commercial, they had
in view the idea of an empire with
mutual good Offices in the matter of
tariff as one of its bonds.
The leader of the opposition, en-
phasizing the fact that the colonies
had developed into great nations,
warned the government that they had
also fully realized tho value of tariff
negotiation. He urged that the re-
suit of Canada's treaties with France,
Germany and the United States had
been a diminution of the perferen-
tial advantages to Britain. The gov
ernment and those who supported 1t
appeared to think England could re-
main outside of this network of trea-
ties, which more and more were ar
ranging channels into which the in
temational trade was to go. Canada
had felt the impossibility of a policy
of isolation, and it is quite certain
that the great dominion which had
entered upon this course of independ-
ent fiscal negotiation could not in
face of the circumstances stop where
they were. The process was just be-
ginning and they must go on.
Concluding, Mr.. Balfour made a
stronp appeal that policy of perfer-
ench should become the policy of all
British statesmen instead Of policy
of only one party.
Premier Asquith's Reply.
Premier Asquith who replied i'm
mediately said that he heard with
great satisfaction that the question
which had slumbered SO long would
be raised again. 1t had been sug-
gested that the government was in
sensible and unresponsive to the
wishes expressed at the colonial con-
ference of 1907. He said that the
conference had passed twenty resolu-
tions, regarding. seventeen Of which
the government had taken action.
The resolutions In respect to a pre-
ference were carried against the Brit
ish government, but the position of
the government had not changed
since that time. When 1t came to the
practical. concrete working out Of the
preference it remained as nebulous
and full of Inconsistencies and absur-
dities as seven years ago. The col
onies were not going to allow British
manufacturers to become effective
competitors with their own cheap raw
material.
The premier proceeded that 1t was
absolutely essential to the British in
dnstries that the government could
not consent either upon food or raw
material to impose tax which would
enhance the cost and thereby handi-
cap our productive power with the in
dnstrial competition of the world.
The empire could never have been
kent together or be what 1t is today,
hound not so much by material as
moral sociabilities and loyal affection
and sympathy, II the government had
insisted from Downing street what
should be the fiscal policy Of Austria
Tia or New Zealand.
Right Hon. Henry Chaplin urged q
tvo-shillings' duty on foreign wheat