cua. vi] TRADE RELATIONS AND CURRENCY 1171 
Her Majesty’s subjects throughout the Empire, and no- 
where more than in Australasia, have manifested, on various 
occasions of late, their strong desire that the connexion 
between the Colonies and this Country should be maintained 
and strengthened, but it can hardly be doubted that the 
imposition of differential duties upon British produce and 
manufactures must have a tendency to weaken that con- 
nexion, and to impair the friendly feeling on both sides, which 
I am confident your Government, as much as Her Majesty’s 
Government, desire to preserve. 
I have thought it right to state frankly and unreservedly 
the views of Her Majesty's Government on this subject, in 
order that the Colonial Governments may be thoroughly 
aware of the nature and gravity of the points which have to 
be decided ; but I do not wish to be understood to indicate 
that Her Majesty’s Government have, in the present state 
of their information, come to any absolute conclusion on the 
questions which I have discussed. 
The objections which I have pointed out to giving to the 
Colonies a general power of making reciprocal arrangements 
would not apply to a Customs union with a uniform tariff, 
and although such a general union of all the Colonies is, it 
appears, impracticable, it may be worth while to consider 
whether the difficulty might not be met by a Customs union 
between two or more Colonies. 
In reply to this dispatch there was a meeting of Premiers 
n Melbourne in 1871! when it was agreed to press further 
apon the Imperial Government the desire to be given a free 
nand in these matters of inter-colonial preference. To these 
dispatches a reply was sent by Lord Kimberley on April 19, 
1872.2 in the following terms :— 
Her Majesty’s Government have had before them your 
Dispatch, No. of the of , and also the dispatches 
from the Governors of the other Australasian Colonies, of 
which copies are enclosed, in reply to my circular dispatch 
of July 13 of last year. } 
As the resolutions signed by the delegates of the Australian 
Colonies, and the memorandum conveying the views of the 
New Zealand Government relate to the same subject, it will 
be convenient that I should deal with them in the same 
dispatch. 
Her Majesty’s Government have no desire to enter upon 
Parl. Pap., C. 576, pp. 13 seq., 18 seq. ? Ibid., pp. 6 seq.