The Earl of Elgin, Secretary of State for the Colonies; Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Prime Minister of Canada; Sir F.W.  Borden, Minister of Militia and Defence (Canada); Mr. L.P.  Brodeur, Minister of Marine and Fisheries (Canada); Mr. Deakin, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia; Sir W. Lyne, Minister of Trade and Customs (Australia); Sir Joseph Ward, Prime Minister of New Zealand; Dr. L.S.  Jameson, Prime Minister of Cape Colony; Dr. Smartt, Commissioner of Public Works (Cape Colony); Sir Robert Bond, Prime Minister of Newfoundland; Mr. F.R.  Moor, Prime Minister of Natal; General Botha, Prime Minister of the Transvaal; Sir J.L.  Mackay, on behalf of the India Office.

[3] The Prime Minister of Natal.

IMPERIAL PREFERENCE

II

HOUSE OF COMMONS, July 15, 1907

    Mr. Lyttelton had moved the following vote of censure: 

“That this House regrets that his Majesty’s Government have declined the invitation unanimously preferred by the Prime Ministers of the self-governing Colonies, to consider favourably any form of Colonial Preference or any measures for closer commercial union of the Empire on a preferential basis.” (Mr. Lyttelton.)

    This was met on behalf of the Government by the following
    Amendment: 

“To leave out all after the word ‘that’ and add the words ’In the opinion of this House, the permanent unity of the British Empire will not be secured through a system of preferential duties based upon the protective taxation of food.’” (Mr. Soares)

    The vote of censure was rejected, and the Amendment carried
    by 404 to 111.

A vote of censure is a very serious thing.  When it is moved with great formality on behalf of the official Opposition, it is intended always to raise a plain and decisive issue.  I must, however, observe that of all the votes of censure which have been proposed in recent times in this House, the one we are now discussing is surely the most curious.  The last Government was broken up three years ago on this very question of Imperial preference.  After the Government had been broken up, a continuous debate proceeded in the country for two years and a half, and it was terminated by the general election.  This Parliament is the result of that election, and there is not a single gentleman on this Ministerial Bench who is not pledged, in the most specific terms, not to grant a preferential tariff to the Colonies.  Now, because we have kept that promise, because we are opposed to preferential tariffs, because we have declined to grant preferential tariffs, and because we have done what all along we declared we were going to do, and were returned to do, we are made the object of this vote of censure.