Mother Country.

There has just been a debate upon that subject in the House of
Commons; but the manner in which that question when raised was
received by the whole House, ought, I think, to give great
satisfaction to the representatives of the self-governing Dominions.
We then refused to embark upon a policy of casting-up balances as
between the Colonies and the Mother Country, and, speaking on behalf
of the Colonial Office, I said that the British Empire existed on the
principles of a family and not on those of a syndicate. But the
introduction of those seven or eight taxes into the Budget of every
year will force a casting-up of balances every year from a severe
financial point of view. It has been said, and will be generally
admitted, that there is no such thing in this country as an
anti-Colonial party. It does not exist. Even parties, like the Irish
Party, not reconciled to the British Government, who take no part in
our public ceremonial, are glad to take opportunities of showing the
representatives of the self-governing Dominions that they welcome them
here, and desire to receive them with warmth and with cordiality. But
I cannot conceive any process better calculated to manufacture an
anti-Colonial party, than this process of subjecting to the scrutiny
of the House of Commons year by year, through the agency of taxation,
the profit and loss account, in its narrow, financial aspect, of the
relations of Great Britain and her Dominions and dependencies.

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,