Imperial Federation: The Problem of National Unity

by George R. Parkin

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To understand the anticipated advantage to the mother-country we must study some extremely suggestive facts connected with inter-imperial trade.

Man for man the people of the colonies, leaving out India, consume British products out of all proportion to foreigners. The figures fluctuate from year to year, but taking the countries with which the United Kingdom carries on the greatest amount of trade a sufficiently accurate average can be given of the ordinary annual consumption per head of British manufactures in each. In Germany and the United States this consumption is about 8s. per head, in France 9s., in Canada £1 15s., in the West Indies £2 5s., in South Africa £3, in Australasia nearly £8. Thus three or four millions of people in Australasia take more of British goods than about fifty millions of people in Germany, and nearly as much as sixty millions of people in the United States. Only an artificial boundary separates Canada from the United States, yet an emigrant who goes north of that boundary immediately begins to purchase more than three times as much of British goods as one who goes south of it. As a customer to the British artizan one Australian is worth sixteen Americans; one South African is worth seven or eight Germans. Figures such as these have suggested the remark that 'trade follows the flag.' It is perhaps a more adequate explanation to say that trade follows not merely the flag, with the protection and prestige which it gives, but that it follows along the line of {290} the tastes, customs and habits of life which the emigrant carries with him; along the line of intimate social and financial connection such as that which exists between England and her colonies. The lowest prices current do not altogether determine the direction of commerce. Social, political, financial and even sentimental considerations unite to create the wants of a people and so in a measure to give tendencies to trade.

Putting all these facts together it is claimed that a national policy which inclined emigration towards the colonies would create with great rapidity new markets for British products and would send back in increasing volume the productions which Britain wants to buy, while adding greatly to the strength and self-sustaining capacity of the whole nation. Hence it is that many advocates of British unity sincerely believe that the adoption of preferential trade relations within the Empire is the readiest way to the great end in view. They hold that trade advantage constitutes the best outward token of national union, and by its sense of common benefit would do more than anything else to make all willing to contribute to national expense.

This view is held very strongly in Canada, South Africa and the West Indies: less importance is attached to it in New Zealand and still less in Australia.

It should not be wondered at in England that Canadians bent upon the maintenance of British connection think of preferential trade relations with {291} the mother-land as a way of escape from the anomalous position in which they have of late been placed. 'Let it be clearly understood,' says Principal Grant, 'that Canada has only two markets worth speaking of. One of these, Great Britain, she shares on equal terms with every foreign nation, and from the other, the United States, she is debarred as long as she is connected with Britain. The former would be as open to her as it is now were she to unite commercially with the Republic and against Britain, and, were she to do so, she would then at once get the other market also.' Is it right or politic, he asks, that an important part of the Empire should be left to such a choice? Principal Grant, however, goes further, and argues that a preferential arrangement within the Empire would only be required as a temporary measure, and would really lead to the Free Trade relations which are desired with the United States. 'So all-important,' he says, 'is the British market to the United States voter, that the mere prospect of a preference being given in it to his rivals would be enough to bring him to a business frame of mind; he thoroughly believes in the "cash value of his markets," and would be ready to give, for what he believes to be a sufficient consideration, that value which he will never dream of giving for nothing.'

While the Canadian accustomed to the thought of protection would thus build up the Empire, strengthen the union, and deepen the sense of nationality by preferential trade relations, the English Free Trader {292} suggests another solution. He says to Canada: Throw down your tariff walls against English manufactures, so far at any rate as your revenue necessities permit, and thereby make Canada the one cheap country to live in on the American continent. When your farmer buys his clothes, builds his house, gets his machinery, his earthenware, his hardware at a far lower cost than the farmer who is being bled to satisfy the McKinley tariff, he will then have an advantage over his competitors far greater than could be given by a preferential tariff in England. Your North-West will be filled with immigrants crowding even from the United States to the centre of cheap living and therefore cheap production; your Eastern farmer will have an increased profit on the meat, the poultry, the eggs, the fruit which he sends to the British or the American market; British capital will flow freely into the country; railroads, canals, ports, shipping will feel the pressure and the prosperity of inward and outward trade; manufactures suitable to each locality will increase with the greater prosperity of the country and the diminished cost of living. Even the McKinley tariff may be forced to give way in face of the striking illustration which Canada would give on the American continent, of the benefits flowing from free commercial movement. The farmer of the Western States, handicapped beside the farmer of the Canadian North-West, would in all probability use his vote to compel the Eastern manufacturer to come to terms with England and Canada.

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But even if other nations refused to yield to such influences, an empire covering one fifth of the world, and capable of producing everything required by man, would have before it, under a system of free commercial intercourse and common citizenship, a period of prosperity unparalleled in the history of the world.

The venerable Earl Grey, in an appeal specially addressed to the Canadian people—an appeal which has stamped upon every sentence good-will for Canada, and sincere regard for her interests—has urged that the Dominion should not merely throw open its markets to England, but to the United States as well, and argues with all the earnestness of his youthful convictions that such a course would not only bring to Canada the same prosperity which Free Trade brought to England, but, on account of Canada's peculiar relations to the United States, would go far to break down all systems of excessive protection.