38 CANADA AND THE EMPIRE.

the other hand, it is Canada’s policy to enter into
commercial treaties with other countries. She
would naturally prefer to have treaties with her
friends, and would therefore rather make a commercial
 treaty with Britain than with any other
country, provided she can secure advantageous
terms. In this manner, then, she is prepared to
negotiate. She will give up no more fiscal independence
 than she would if she were making a
similar treaty with France, nor renounce her power
of making treaties with other countries, and she
will only enter upon a treaty with us for such
period as suits herself, with full power to break it
off at the end of that period if she so desires. If
Canada sets the example it may be taken for
granted that the other colonies will follow it.
All idea of making the Empire a unit for commercial
 transactions will be at an end. Britain
will be forced into negotiating a series of commercial
 treaties with each of her colonies.
A preference given to the colonies on any given
article must have a comparative value to each
colony, depending on the importance to the colony
concerned of the production of that article. Did
one colony conceive that it was receiving an advantage
 compared to which the advantage received by
another colony was very great, it would have cause
to ask for another preference to equalise advantages.
This raises the question of differential treatment
of the various colonies, a claim for which has already
been put forward at the meeting of the Australasian