1120 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [PART V
powers whose treaty rights might be affected. This principle
was fully accepted by Canada in respect of the French Con-
ventions of 1907 and 1909, and similarly in respect of the
concessions made to Germany, the United States, and Italy
in 1910, and proposed to the United States in 1911.
(2) Further, His Majesty’s Government regard it as
essential that any tariff concession conceded by a Dominion
to a foreign power should be extended to the United King-
dom, and to the rest of His Majesty’s Dominions. It is clear
that no Dominion would wish to afford to foreign nations
better treatment than it accords to the rest of the Empire of
which it forms a part. For example, when informal discus-
sions with a view to commercial arrangements between the
Dominion of Canada and the United States were conducted
in 1892, the Dominion Government declined to agree that
Canada should discriminate against the products and manu-
factures of the United Kingdom, and on this ground the
negotiations were broken off! Similarly, when Newfound-
land in 1890 had made preliminary arrangements for a con-
vention with the United States which would have accorded
preferential treatment to that power,? Her Majesty’s Govern-
ment acknowledged the force of the protest made by Canada,
and when the Newfoundland Government proposed to pass
legislation to grant the concession stipulated for by the
United States, the Secretary of State in a dispatch of
March 26, 1892, informed the Dominion Government that
they might rest assured ‘ that Her Majesty will not be advised
to assent to any Newfoundland legislation discriminating
directly against the products of the Dominion ’.
(3) His Majesty’s Government cannot agree to a Colony
asking from foreign powers concessions hostile to the interests
of other parts of the Empire. If, therefore, a preference was
sought by or offered to a Dominion in respect of any article
in which it competed seriously with the other Colonies or the
Mother Country, His Majesty’s Government would feel it
! See United States Senate, 52 Congress, Sess. 1, Exec. Doc. No. 114 ;
Canadian Gazette, xviii. 603; Hopkins, Sir John Thompson, p. 402.
* Cf. Canadian Gazette. xviii, 482; Parl, Pap., C. 6303, pp. 14 seq., 33 seq.
