IMPERIAL PREFERENCE

The work which the British Imperial Conference is doing in London is not spectacular, but it may well prove more fruitful than the multitudinous proposals for solving the German crisis which have been filing the press of last. The chief aim of the Conference is to make the British Empire an economic as well as a political unit. Among the various methods of attaining this end, "Imperial Preference" is perhaps at once the most discussed and the most practical.

"Imperial Preference" is the policy of favoring the United Kingdom by low tariffs in the matter of manufactured goods entering the colonies and dominions, while the United Kingdom allows the raw products of her colonies and dominions to enter duty free while taxing those of other countries. This of course would have the effect of making the British Empire a closed economic system, fully competent to live in economic self-sufficiency through the variety and wide distribution of her resources.

Americans would doubtless look on the inauguration of a policy of "Imperial Preference" with a mixture of pride and fear. They would be able to point out that the English economists of the nineteenth century who so soundly berated Americans for not adopting a policy of free trade were now deserted by their own countrymen. Still, it would hardly be pleasant to contemplate a triumph in economic theory which might seriously affect profitable trade which we flow enjoy in wheat cotton, and other raw materials. Since the passage of the Frozenly Tariff the United States is hardly in a position to complain much over unreasonable duties. Consequently it seems that Americans must stand by and observer, with the constant hope that some important dominion will frustrate that whole scheme.