Then the House has been told that the Government might have given a preference on dutiable articles.  Such a preference would introduce into our fiscal system an entirely new, and, as the Government think, the wholly vicious feature of discriminating between one class of producers and another.  The whole basis of our financial and fiscal policy is, that it draws no distinction whatever between different classes of producers, whether they reside here or abroad, whether they live in foreign countries or in our Colonies.  I am quite prepared to state that proposition in its simplest form.  That is the fundamental principle of our fiscal system, and there is no discrimination.  We have but one measure to give to those who trade with us—­the just measure of equality, and there can be no better measure than that.

We are charged with pedantry in dealing with the Colonial Conference, through not making some concession upon existing dutiable articles.  The Colonial representatives, when they asked for a preference on wine and tobacco, did not ask for it because it was of value to them by itself.  They knew well that the operation of such a preference must be unfair and unequal.  They knew well that Canada, which has the most solid claims upon us for a preferential recognition, would receive no benefit from such a preference.  But the Colonial representatives of South Africa asked for a preference on wine and tobacco in order that, as they avowed with candour, we should “concede the principle.”  That is a perfectly proper proceeding on their part; it is the natural way of advancing the views which they hold, because it would lead up to the larger principle and the larger policy.

But the Government are opposed in this case to “the larger policy.”  The Government sit now on these Benches because they are opposed to it as a Government and as a Party.  It is one of the fundamental conditions of our existence that we are opposed to such a policy.  How, then, by any process of argument, can the Government be censured for not making an exception which must inevitably have led to and would avowedly have been used for the breaking of the great rule to which they have committed themselves?

It is a dangerous thing in this controversy, with the ugly rush of vested interests always lying in the wake of the Protectionist movement to be considered, to make even verbal concessions.  Some time ago I made a speech in which I said that there was no objection to the extension of inter-colonial preference.  By this I meant the reduction of duties between Colonies which have already a discriminating tariff; and it seemed to me in such a case that there is a net reduction of duty to the good.  I do not see any objection to that, because under the most-favoured-nation principle we gain any advantage which is gained by either party to the transaction.  In any case, the sums involved in inter-colonial preference at the present time are extremely small, and, however that might be, the matter is one which is wholly outside our control, because we have no authority over the Colonies in this respect, and we may just as well look pleasant about it and accord a sympathetic attitude to such a process.