Then this system of reciprocal preference, at its very outset, must involve conflict with the principle of self-government, which is the root of all our Colonial and Imperial policy.  The whole procedure of our Parliament arises primarily from the consideration of finance, and finance is the peg on which nearly all our discussions are hung, and from which many of them arise.  That is the historic origin of a great portion of the House of Commons procedure, and there is no more deeply rooted maxim than the maxim of “grievances before supply.”  Now, let me suppose a system of preference in operation.  When the taxes came up to be voted each year, members would use those occasions for debating Colonial questions.  I can imagine that they would say:  We refuse to vote the preference tax to this or that self-governing Dominion, unless or until our views, say, on native policy or some other question of internal importance to the Dominion affected have been met and have been accepted.  At present, it is open to the Colony affected to reply:  These matters are matters which concern us; they are within the scope of responsible, self-governing functions, and you are not called upon to interfere.  It is open for the Dominion concerned to say that.  It is also open for the representative of the Colonial Office in the House of Commons to say that, too, on their behalf.

But it will no longer be open, I think, for any such defence to be offered when sums of money, or what would be regarded as equivalent to sums of money, have actually to be voted in the House of Commons through the agency of these taxes for the purpose of according preference to the different Dominions of the Crown, and I think members will say, “If you complain of our interference, why do you force us to interfere?  You have forced us to consider now whether we will or will not grant a preference to this or that particular Dominion for this year.  We say we are not prepared to do so unless or until our views upon this or that particular internal question in that Dominion have been met and agreed to.”  I see a fertile, frequent, and almost inexhaustible source of friction and vexation arising from such causes alone.

There is a more serious infringement, as it seems to me, upon the principle of self-government.  The preferences which have hitherto been accorded to the Mother Country by the self-governing States of the British Empire are free preferences.  They are preferences which have been conceded by those States, in their own interests and also in our interests.  They are freely given, and, if they gall them, can as freely be withdrawn; but the moment reciprocity is established and an agreement has been entered into to which both sides are parties, the moment the preferences become reciprocal, and there is a British preference against the Australian or Canadian preferences, they become not free preferences, but what I venture to call locked preferences, and they cannot be removed except by agreement, which is not likely to be swiftly or easily attained.