sum collected under this head during the same period by the colonies and territories comprising the South African Customs Union." A protocol was added, 1st September, 1913, equalising the duties on spirits and beer in the union and in the territory (Report, 1913-14, Cd. 7622). A similar arrangement was concluded with Swaziland, dated 30th June, 1910. Payments due to Swaziland are assessed on the proportion which the average of the collections for three years ended the 31st March, 1911, bears to the total customs collections of the union in each year (C. R. Annual, Swaziland, 1910-11, Cd. 5467).

The relations between the union and Northen and Southern Rhodesia are somewhat different. The tariff of S. Rhodesia is practically identical with that of the South African Union (Ord., No. 30 of 1914, and by O., No. 7 of 1915) and the Northern Rhodesian tariff is classified similarly to that of S. Rhodesia. But the position is complicated by the fact that

(1) In virtue of the so-called Rhodes clause in both Northern and Southern Rhodesia (Art. 478, the S.R. O-in-C., 1898, amended by O.-in-O. of 10th August, 1914, and Clause 19 of the N.R. O.-in-C. of 1911, amended 1914).

"No customs duties levied on any articles, other than tobacco in any form of intoxicating liquors of any kind, produced or manufactured, in any part of H.M. Dominions or in any British Protectorate and imported into Southern or Northern Rhodesia (as the case may be) shall exceed in amount the duties levied on similar articles from over-sea according to the tariff in force in the S.A. Customs Union at the date of coming into operation of the "Southern Rhodesian Order-in-Council, 1898, or the tariff contained in the Customs Union Convention concluded between the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, the Orange Free State, and Natal in May, 1898, whichever are the higher."

(2) Northern Rhodesa is divided for customs purposes into two areas

(a) The Zambesi Basin, where the tariff operative is, with the above-named exception, similar to that in the union.

(b) The Congo Basin, where in general the rate of duty is limited to 10 per cent. ad valorem, owing to the inclusion of the area in the open-door territory of the Berlin Conference

of 1885.

(On the points raised above, see C.I.D., 1914 and 1915 Official Year Book of the Union of South Africa, 191016, pp. 492-3; Cd. 1599 of 1903, Cd. 2977 of 1906.) It may be mentioned also that preferential relations exist under the Pretoria Convention of 1st April, 1909, between the Transvaal and the Mozambique Governments, an arrangement concluded in the first instance for ten years, and terminable thereafter at one year's notice. The convention provides for free importation into the Transvaal of all articles the produce of the Province, whilst it also equalises export duties on goods exported either via Cape or Natal ports or Portuguese ports, and applies similar treatment to imports.

A glance at a map will explain the differences in the attitude which have been described above towards union on the part of different provinces. The South African Union has been described as a railway union: it is equally true that the geographical pull exercised by the seaboard colonies on the landlocked ones should lead to a desire for union. The Transvaal, with an alternative port, is in a different position to the others, and has in the past taken up a somewhat intransigeant attitude.

A word may be said as to the position in Australia before the passage of the Commonwealth Act.

From a very early date in the history of the Australasian colonies the desirability of common action had been recognised, although, as events turned out, customs unity did not come into being until complete political unity was also achieved. In 1849 "the Lords of the Committee of Council appointed for the consideration of all matters relating to trade and plantations" reported to the Privy Council1—

There yet remains a question of considerable difficulty. By far the larger part of the revenue of the Australian Colonies is derived from duties on customs. But if, when Victoria shall have been separated from New South Wales, each province shall be authorised to impose duties according to its own wants, it is scarcely possible, but that in process of time differences should

1 Correspondence on the Australian Colonies Government Bill, Parl. Pap. 1850, vol. xxxvii., pp. 74-5. For a general sketch of the Australian problem, see Egerton, "Federations and Unions in the British Empire," pp. 40-67; Wise," The Commonwealth of Australia," Part ii., Chap. i.; and for the period 1860-73, esp.; Coghlan, "Labour and Industry in Australia," vol. ii., pp. 1136-85.

arise between the rates of duty imposed upon the same articles in the one and in the other of them. There is already such a difference in the tariffs of South Australia and New South Wales, and although, until of late, this has been productive of little inconvenience, yet with the increase of settlers on either side of the imaginary line dividing them, it will become more and more serious. The division of New South Wales into two colonies would further aggravate this inconvenience, if the change should lead to the introduction of three entirely distinct tariffs, and to the consequent necessity for imposing restrictions and securities on the import and export of goods between them. So great indeed would be the evil, and such the obstruction of the inter-colonial trade, and so great the check to the development of the resources of each of these colonies that it seems to us necessary that there should be one tariff common to them all, so that goods might be carried from the one into the other with the same absolute freedom as between any two adjacent counties in England. We are further of opinion that the same tariff should be established in Van Diemens Land also, because the intercourse between that island and the neighbouring colonies in New Holland has risen. to a great importance and extent, and has an obvious tendency to increase. Yet fiscal regulations on one side of the intervening strait must of necessity check, and might perhaps, to a great extent, destroy that beneficial trade.

"If the duties were uniform it is obvious there need be no restrictions whatever imposed upon the import or export of goods between the respective colonies, and no motive for importing into one goods liable to duty, which were destined for consumption in another, and it may safely be calculated that each would receive the proportion of revenue to which it would be justly entitled, or, at all events, that there would be no departure from this to an extent of any practical importance.

"Hence, it seems to us that a uniformity in the rate. of duties should be secured.

"For this purpose we recommend that a uniform tariff should be established by the authority of Parliament, but that it should not take effect until twelve months

had elapsed from the promulgation in the several colonies of the proposed Act. . We should not, however, be prepared to offer this recommendation, unless we proposed at the same time to provide for making any alteration in this general tariff, which time and experience may dictate, and this we think can only be done by creating some authority competent to act for all those colonies jointly."

These predictions of future trouble if the tariff relations were not to be definitely settled ab initio proved correct: the opposition of interests between Victoria and New South Wales were to be a stumbling block to union for many a day.

British, as distinct from colonial, opinion was to pronounce itself in favour of customs unity at a later stage also: when, at the beginning of the seventies, the Australasian Colonies desired to grant each other preferential duties, the proposal was met at home by the counter suggestion of a customs union, this time, indeed, on the ground of the difficulties of the treaty position of the United Kingdom.1

Both in 1891 at the Sydney conference, and in the negotiations which, dating from 1897, finally led to the founding of the Australian Commonwealth the tariff problem played an important part, though policy as to free trade or protection was relatively less important than the technical point as to the adjustment of revenue claims, and this led to some complications in the form of the constitution.

1 See Lord Kimberley's dispatch, dated 19th April, 1872, quoted; Keith, "Responsible Government," vol. iii., p. 1171, et seq., esp. p. 1177. "Customs unions which have hitherto, so far as I am aware, never been formed except between neighbouring communities have for their object the removal of the barriers to trade created by artificial boundaries and the establishment of a cheaper and more convenient mode of collecting the customs revenue of the united countries. But the formation of such a union does not, in itself, involve any question of protection to native industry, nor of inequality of treatment of imports from countries not belonging to the union. On the other hand, such reciprocity arrangements as the Colonies desire to conclude are not confined to the promotion of free intercourse between each other, but are intended to secure for the trade of the respective colonies special advantages, as against imports from other places, in return for corresponding concessions. A Customs Union, while it would incidentally secure important advantages to native industry by the removal of all obstacles to internal trade, would do so without establishing the principle of preferential duties."

2 Egerton, op. cit., pp. 59, 65; see also sec. 8 of the foregoing chapter.

CHAPTER I.—Continued.

TARIFF-MAKING BODIES.

§ 11. WE now pass to the consideration of one aspect of the subject which recent currents of thought render more than usually important and interesting. This aspect concerns tariff-making bodies.

Two allied currents of thought impinge here to form a stream of ideas hostile to the traditional technique by which tariffs actually come into being. The first current draws a large part of its strength from the power of words on what a distinguished statesman has recently described as "uninstructed mind," and takes concrete shape in the demand for a "scientific tariff." The second draws its strength from the suspicion that the tariff is capable of being turned into an instrument of private enrichment at the expense of the public, and that the process by which tariffs are enactedthrough the instrumentality of the legislature-enables a possibility to be turned into an actuality through the corruption of the legislator: directly, as when corrupt bargains are made between powerful economic interests and individual politicians; indirectly, when the policy of governments is dictated by the necessity of safeguarding themselves from the attacks of powerful interests with allies in the press and the legislature itself, and on which they are dependent for the replenishing of the party funds. The suspicions alluded to lead to the demand for an "impartial" tariff-making body, for "taking the tariff out of politics."

§12. The demand for a scientific tariff comprehends this latter demand also, but it includes more than this. In this country the demand for a scientific tariff was, in the days before the War, based largely on the supposedly scientific character of the German tariff of 1902. Wherein its scientific character lay is not always clearly seen; the demand is to a large extent a mere worship of a phrase. It is only at the end of our present enquiry that we shall be able to answer the question, to what extent the term "scientific " can be applied to tariff making at all. But we may at this stage indicate the practical result to which these demands usually lead-what is desired is the creation of a "Board"