INTERCOLONIAL FREE TRADE

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 32, 7 February 1907, Page 5

INTERCOLONIAL FREE TRADE

«> _ BRITAIN AND THE COLONIES SPEECH BY MR. CHURCHILL. [mesa associatiom.l LONDON, 6th February. Mr. Winston Churchill delivered a speech yesterday at tho Leeds, Chamber of Commerce dinner. He said he drew the. lesson from the recent occurrences in 'Jamaica and from the needs of other parts of the Empire that there was urgent necessity to establish a j squadron cf warships of some sort or other to patrol Britain's outlying possessions. The system of commercial conference started by the late Government, would be extended and made re- , gular, bringing practical business men throughout the country 1 into closer relations with high officials in the colonial offices. The Minister remarked that there would ,be on all sides unrestricted freedom and frankness at the Colonial Conference. Mr. Churchill went on to say that tho Government valued highly the preferences already offered to Britain by the colonies, because of the loyal and j noble sentiment prompting them, be cause they wero freely given. »nd because in that way the colonies were able to make 'some return to tho Motherland for her great expenditure in the common defence of tho Empire. The Government sympathised wjth and supported the growing practice of intercolonial preference, because it involved the lowering of duties and facilitated tho approach of intercolonial freetrade— the goal of both tariff reformers and freetraders in Britain.