for the vitality and progressiveness of our trade are most clearly indicated in those Colonies and possessions which are inhabited by people of our own race, whose habits and prejudices are very like ours, among whom fashions follow the same course, and popular demand is much the same as at home.
Why should commerce be regarded as an exceptional branch of human activity, standing, as it were, in a watertight compartment apart from the rest of life? It is affected, and to a large extent guided, by the same motives, considerations, and feelings as all other forms of human activity. It would, therefore, be a matter for surprise if, when we were dealing with Imperial questions, we did not find Imperial trade show signs of exactly the same movements of opinion and sentiment which we see at work in Imperial politics. There can be little doubt that the deep-lying causes which are bringing the Empire into closer political relations are also slowly driving it in the direction of closer commercial relations. And the reason is not difficult to find. The changes of the last twenty years in the commercial policy of our European neighbours and their new colonial activities have modified our position as Empire-builders and as traders in a closely parallel manner. In each case rivals have come into a field which was almost exclusively our own. In each case they have deprived us of our monopoly, but they have not, so far, succeeded in ousting us from our predominant position. It is probably the consciousness of these facts, the sense that we are face to face with competition, political and commercial, more severe, more far-reaching, more dangerous, than at any previous period, that is impelling us to take more careful stock of our own Empire, its commercial as well as its naval and military possibilities, its commercial as well as its naval and military future.
I am not particularly concerned to prove here how far trade follows or accompanies the flag, but I do wish to show what Imperial trade actually is, and what it is doing, or may be expected to do, for the Empire. In
