Such a deadlock could not be relieved merely by goodwill on either side.  When you begin to deflect the course of trade, you deflect it in all directions and for all time in both countries which are parties to the bargain.  Your industries in your respective Colonies would have exposed themselves to a more severe competition from British goods in their markets, and would have adjusted themselves on a different basis, in consequence.  Some Colonial producers would have made sacrifices in that respect for the sake of certain advantages which were to be gained by other producers in their country through a favoured entry into our market.  That one side of the bargain could be suddenly removed, without inflicting injustice on the other party to the bargain, appears to me an impossibility.

I submit that preferences, even if economically desirable, would prove an element of strain and discord in the structure and system of the British Empire.  Why, even in this Conference, what has been the one subject on which we have differed sharply?  It has been this question of preference.  It has been the one apple of discord which has been thrown into the arena of our discussions.  It is quite true we meet here with a great fund of goodwill on everybody’s part, on the part of the Mother Country and on the part of the representatives of the self-governing Dominions—­a great fund of goodwill which has been accumulated over a long period of time when each party to this great confederation has been free to pursue its own line of development unchecked and untrammelled by interference from the other.

We have that to start upon, and consequently have been able to discuss in a very frank and friendly manner all sorts of questions.  We have witnessed the spectacle of the British Minister in charge of the trade of this country defending at length and in detail the fiscal system—­the purely domestic, internal fiscal system of this country—­from very severe, though perfectly friendly and courteous criticism on the part of the other self-governing communities.  If that fund of goodwill to which I have referred had been lacking, if ever a Conference had been called together when there was an actual anti-colonial party in existence, when there was really a deep hatred in the minds of a large portion of the people of this country against the Colonies and against taxation which was imposed at the request or desire of the Colonies, then I think it is quite possible that a Conference such as this would not pass off in the smooth and friendly manner in which this has passed off.