§ 8.—Commerce Between the Colonies and the Mother Country.

To the commerce of the United Kingdom the growth of the British colonies and India is of immense value, for they provide the United Kingdom with many of the raw materials and articles of food of which she stands in need, and they are consumers of goods and produce of which Britain can dispose in abundance. In 1884 24.57 per cent, of the total value of imports of the United Kingdom came from British possessions, and 29.85 per cent, of the total value of exports from the United Kingdom went to the British possessions. But if, on the whole, about 27 per cent, of the trade of the United Kingdom is with British possessions, it follows that 73 per cent, of the same is with foreign countries.⁸ It is scarcely true, therefore, to say that the British Empire is in any wise self-sustaining or can be independent of foreign States. It is, indeed, the sheerest folly to imagine that the United Kingdom can ever enter into a commercial federation with the colonies, establishing either fair trade or even free trade among themselves, on condition of levying protective duties against all foreign countries.