It has been claimed, for instance, that the Dominions have
for years granted us generous preferences to which we have made no response, or hardly any until this year. The statement contrasts this view of our lack of generosity with the fact that we have always admitted almost every export of the Dominions free (India tea is an exception for special reasons), thus taking a vast stream of those exports on which their existence depends, while every other country had a tariff against them. Tables are given to show that apart from tea the Dominions send in free about 90 per cent, of their exports to Us. On the other side, every export of ours has been met by some kind of tax or duty in the Doniinions. Again, it is delicately but quite plainly hinted that we are quite aware that some preferences sound more generous than they prove in practice to be. For a tariff wall may be built up so high that a great many courses of bricks may be knocked off it as a special favour and yet the wall may still effect its natural purpose of keeping things out. The figures given of foreign trade show that only 30 per cent. of our imports from foreign countries now come in free, and that in spite of their Protectionist systems the Dominions in 1930 took nearly I350 millions worth of goods from foreign countries. Much of this we could, of course, have supplied.
