162 PREFERENTIAL TARIFF 



will check those tendencies and place our market 

 more freely, instead of less freely, at the disposal 

 of our own Empire ? Incidentally, they add, 

 will not arrangements of this nature operate to 

 protect and foster the nascent industries of India ? 



PROTECTION. 



The Indian Protectionist movement has un- 

 doubtedly, to a certain extent, been encouraged 

 by the agitation in favour of Protection which has 

 for some years been carried on so far without 

 practical success by a section of the community 

 in the United Kingdom. With that great con- 

 troversy in its broader aspects it is not my place or 

 my intention to deal. But we must remember 

 that the agitation for Protection is linked with a 

 policy of Imperial Preference ; a matter which is of 

 considerable interest to India. 



I have been at some pains to discover the pro- 

 posals advocated under the term Tariif Reform 

 so far as they concern the trade relations of the 

 Mother Country with India. So far as I have 

 been able to learn, the references to this subject 

 have been as yet too vague and indecisive for much 

 to be deduced from them. 



The " Speakers' Handbook " of the Tariff 

 Reform League propounds preferential proposals 

 with regard to India in a paragraph (page 185) 

 which, whatever other opinions may be expressed 

 about them, is certainly concise and intelligible. 

 It is as follows: 



" Preference would mean to India that the United Kingdom 

 and the Colonies would give freer entry to Indian tea, coffee, 

 sugar, wheat, and all Indian staple products, and it would 

 mean to us that the Indian import duty on a large number of 

 British manufactures would be either abolished or reduced." 



I make no comment upon it, except to invite 

 attention to the last portion of it, which must be 



