My right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has told
the Conference with perfect truth--in fact it may have been even an
under-estimate--that if he were to propose the principle of preference
in the present House of Commons, it would be rejected by a majority of
three to one. But even if the present Government could command a
majority for the system, they would have no intention whatever of
proposing it. It is not because we are not ready to run electoral
risks that we decline to be parties to a system of preference; still
less is it because the present Government is unwilling to make
sacrifices, in money or otherwise, in order to weave the Empire more
closely together. I think a very hopeful deflection has been given to
our discussion when it is suggested that we may find a more convenient
line of advance by improving communications, rather than by erecting
tariffs--by making roads, as it were, across the Empire, rather than
by building walls. It is because we believe the principle of
preference is positively injurious to the British Empire, and would
create, not union, but discord, that we have resisted the proposal.

It has been a source of regret to all of us that on this subject we
cannot come to an agreement. A fundamental difference of opinion on
economics, no doubt, makes agreement impossible; but although we
regret that, I do not doubt that in the future, when Imperial
unification has been carried to a stage which it has not now reached,
and will not, perhaps, in our time attain, people in that more
fortunate age will look back to the Conference of 1907 as a date in
the history of the British Empire when one grand wrong turn was
successfully avoided.

FOOTNOTES: