Britain and any foreign power, which prevent such agreements of
commercial reciprocity. (3) A customs arrangement between Great Britain
and her colonies by which trade within the empire might be placed on a
more favourable footing than that which is carried on with foreign
countries. (4) Improved steamship communication between Canada,
Australasia, and Great Britain. (5) Telegraph communication by cable,
free from foreign control, between Canada and Australia. These various
resolutions were brought formally by the Earl of Jersey to the notice
of the imperial government, which expressed the opinion, through the
Marquess of Ripon, then secretary of state for the colonies, that the
"general economic results" of the preferential trade recommended by the
conference "would not be beneficial to the empire." Lord Ripon even
questioned the desirability of denouncing at that time the treaties with
Belgium and Germany--a subject which had engaged the attention of the
Canadian parliament in 1892, when the government, of which Sir John
Abbott was premier, passed an address to the Queen, requesting that
immediate steps be taken to free Canada from treaty restrictions
"incompatible with the rights and powers conferred by the British North
America act of 1867 for the regulation of the trade and commerce of the
Dominion." Any advantages which might be granted by Great Britain to
either Belgium or the German Zollverein under these particular treaties,
would also have to be extended to a number of other countries which had
what is called the "favoured nations clause" in treaties with England.
While these treaty stipulations with regard to import duties did not
prevent differential treatment by the United Kingdom in favour of
British colonies, or differential treatment by British colonies in
favour of each other, they did prevent differential treatment by British
colonies in favour of the United Kingdom. As we shall presently see,
when I come to review the commercial policy of the new Dominion
government three years later, the practical consequence of these