INDIA WITHIN THE EMPIRE 169 



Kingdom has for many years abandoned the ex- 

 ploitation of Colonial markets in the interest of 

 the Mother Country and has left her self-govern- 

 ing Colonies free to do what her statesmen thought 

 right in the interests of those Colonies, with the 

 result that an Empire policy has grown up in the 

 conditions so created different in character and in 

 objects from any policy which the world has ever 

 seen before, which has for its object the strength- 

 ening of the Empire as a whole by the development 

 of the economic interests of its several parts, and 

 the linking together of the Mother Country and 

 the constituent States of the Empire by a co- 

 ordination of policy and the intertwining of their 

 economic interests by a system of preferences. 



India, owing to special conditions, has not been 

 brought into the general Imperial trade movement, 

 but in view of the modification of the old ideas in 

 regard to free importation and the economic 

 principles underlying them, and the progress . of 

 events throughout the Empire in the last thirty 

 years, it is conceivable that India may in the 

 future be unable to maintain a policy of absolutely 

 free importation under which she must suffer all 

 the incidents of exploitation of her own market. 

 Hence the key of the future policy of India must 

 be found in observing what is the nature of the 

 movement taking place in the rest of the British 

 Empire, and in considering under what conditions 

 India could fall in with any general policy of Empire 

 preference. 



Let us see what the progress of the Imperial 

 movement has been. The Empire consists of 

 self-governing Dominions, Crown Colonies, Depen- 

 dencies, Protectorates, at every conceivable stage 

 of economic development; but during the last 

 twenty years, irrespective of Governments and 

 party changes in the Mother Country, the measures 



