84 CANADA AND THE EMPIRE.

of the programme and a most marked apprehension
of the other.
If this is to be the spirit animating the colonies
it does not bode well for the success of the scheme,
for there are many difficulties and dangers that will
have to be faced. How, for instance, can Imperial
reciprocity be made to harmonise with the policy
of retaliation, a policy in which Canada believes and
of which she makes use—a policy which is presumably
 to become part of the Conservative programme
 in Britain. If foreign countries know that
no matter what concessions they are prepared to
make they will never be allowed to compete inside
 the Empire on equal terms with the Empire,
the value of the market to them will at once be
depreciated, and they will offer but little in the way
of tariff reduction in return for entry on such unequal
terms. It is generally conceded that if retaliation is
to be successful the retaliator must be armed with
the longer weapon, but an Imperial Tariff is bound
to have the effect of breaking half the blade off the
sword with which the foreigner is to be fought.
The same objection applies with even greater force
to the idea which is entertained by many preferentialists,
 of treating the Empire, once the
preference is established, as a unit in negotiating
commercial treaties with foreign Powers. Under
such a plan the individual colonies and Britain
herself would be reduced to precisely the same
position which Britain now enjoys under the Sugar
Bounties Convention, a position to which the