factures as they have already created, and would leave what remains to the Mother Country in exchange for a preference from her. Still, I do not suppose that anyone now seriously desires to go back to the old plan—the plan under which the Colonies were veritable 'tied houses' in all particulars. Our Tariff Reformers only wish to make them 'tied houses' in certain trades. I shall, therefore, not examine the Navigation Acts and other Acts in restraint of colonial trade at the time of their full severity. I shall deal rather with the later period, and when the Navigation Laws had been greatly relaxed, and something closely resembling Mr. Chamberlain's system of Preference was established throughout the Empire. During that period—i.e., from the close of the French war up till 1845—the absolute prohibition of many articles from entry into the Colonies had been abandoned and ad valorem duties were imposed instead, but at the same time Colonial Preference in the English market remained intact. Let us look at the actual working of this system of Colonial Preference.
II.
I will take first the timber trade. Till the beginning of the nineteenth century we drew all our supplies of timber from the North of Europe. After our quarrel with the Northern Powers, and our seizure of the Danish fleet in 1807, our policy was altered. Mr. Vansittart, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, devised a plan similar in intention to that of the Preferentialists of to-day. He argued that as there was plenty of timber to be found in the British Empire it would be wise to use the Tariff to render the Empire self-supporting in the matter of timber and free from the danger of relying upon foreign sources of supply. Accordingly, he almost entirely repealed the duties on timber coming from our American possessions, and placed an enormous duty on North European timbers. The immediate result of the policy was that we were flooded for years with inferior
