1166 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [PART V 
The whole position was summed up by the Secretary of 
State in a dispatch of July 13, 1871.1! as follows :— 
{ have had for some time under my consideration dis- 
patches from the Governors of several of the Australasian 
Colonies, intimating the desire of the Colonial Governments 
that any two or more of those Colonies should be permitted 
to conclude agreements securing to each other reciprocal 
tariff advantages, and reserved Bills to this effect have already 
reached me from New Zealand and Tasmania. 
{t appears that, whilst it is at present impossible to form 
a General Customs Union, owing to the conflicting views of 
the different Colonial Governments as to Customs duties, the 
opinion extensively prevails which was expressed at the 
Inter-colonial Conference held at Melbourne last year, in 
favour of such a relaxation of the law as would allow each 
Colony of the Australasian group to admit any of the products 
or manufactures of the other Australasian Colonies duty free, 
or on more favourable terms than similar products and 
manufactures of other countries. 
At the same time it has not been stated to me from any 
quarter that the subject urgently presses for the immediate 
decision or action of Her Majesty’s Government, and I trust, 
therefore, that any delay that may arise in dealing with it 
will be attributed to its true cause, namely, to the desire of 
Her Majesty’s Government to consider the subject deliberately 
in all its bearings, with a view to arrive at such a settlement 
as may not merely meet temporary objects, but constitute 
a permanent system resting upon sound principles of com- 
mercial policy. 
The necessary consultations with the Board of Trade and 
with the Law Officers have unavoidably been protracted to 
a late period of the session, and if Her Majesty’s Government 
were satisfied that they could properly consent to the removal 
of the restriction against differential duties, it would not be 
possible now to obtain for so important a measure the atten- 
tion which it should receive from Parliament. It is by no 
means improbable that the introduction of a Bill to enable 
the Australasian Colonies to impose differential duties might 
raise serious discussions and opposition both in Parliament 
and in the country, on the ground that such a measure would 
be inconsistent with the principles of Free Trade and pre- 
judicial to the commercial and political relations between 
the different parts of the Empire. And I feel confident that 
t Parl. Pap., C. 576, pp. 2 seq.