dependencies to such countries." 1 The general duties and the surtaxes on the articles named in this clause are shown in Table 3.

Canada, Great Britain, France, and the United States all ener fishing privileges in Newfoundland. Canada and Great Britain admi the products of the Newfoundland fisheries free of duty, while Nev foundland does not import from France any of the items enumerated The provision is directed, therefore, against the United States an would establish, if put into effect, an important preference to Cans dian and in less degree to British trade. Since 1913 fish have bee admitted into the United States free of duty. There is no evidenc that this provision had ever been brought into operation before that date. It can not be assumed, however, that it will not be put force if the American general tariff bill which has already passed the House, and which makes fish dutiable, becomes law. Table 6 shows the importance of the articles mentioned in the trade of the Unite States with Newfoundland and the extent of Canadian competition for this trade.

TABLE 6.-Exports to Newfoundland of the articles named in the penalty tariff province, [Average values of exports of domestic products, in thousands of dollars, from the United States for the three calendar years, 1918-1920, and from Canada for the three fiscal years ended Mar. 31, 1921.]

The term "British South Africa" is generally understood, and is here used, to include (1) the four Provinces of the Union of South Africa, namely, Cape Colony, the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and Natal, (2) the British Crown territories of Basutoland and Swaziland, and the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, (3) the territories under the administration of the British South Africa Co., namely, Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia, (4) since 1915 German Southwest Africa, now known as the South-West Africa Protectorate and administered by the Union of South Africa under mandate from the League of Nations. All of these colonies and territories, except part of Northern Rhodesia, are in the South African Customs Union.

The first European settlement in what is now known as British South Africa was made by the Netherlands East India Co., which occupied the Cape of Good Hope from 1652 to 1795. In 1795 the Cape was seized by the British, and it was occupied by them until

1803, when it was restored to Dutch rule. In January, 1806, the Cape was once more surrendered to the British, and from this date has remained uninterruptedly a British possession. Until 1854 Cape Colony was governed as a Crown colony. In that year it was granted representative government and in 1872 responsible government Natal was made a separate colony with representative governmen: in 1856 and was given responsible government in 1893. The Transvaal and the Orange Free State, which were settled by Dutch colonists who had moved north at various times were independent or semiindependent republics from their organization in 1852 and 1834. respectively, until their conquest in the Boer War, except for a interval of four years (1877-1881), when they were under British sovereignty. During the period of reconstruction after the Boer War they were governed as Crown colonies, but in 1906 responsible gorernment was granted to the Transvaal and in 1907 to the Orang Free State. In 1910 Cape Colony, the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and Natal entered into political union, forming the Unio of South Africa." To this union as mandatory the conquered German territory of Southwest Africa has been entrusted.

44

Rhodesia was founded by Cecil Rhodes in 1889, while premier Cape Colony, under a British charter entrusting the British South Africa Co. with the administration of the territory. In Souther Rhodesia the company is assisted by a partially elective legislative council.

Basutoland, Swaziland, and the Bechuanaland Protectorate are territories inhabited almost exclusively by natives and are governed by their chiefs under the supervision of an administrator responsible to the Imperial Government.

I. TARIFF HISTORY, 1795-1903.

PREFERENTIAL SYSTEM, 1795-1855.

Up to 1795 the Dutch East India Co. enjoyed a monopoly of the trade of the Cape and exercised strict and narrow control. Betwee 1795 and 1806 the British and the Dutch followed a more liber policy, but many restrictions remained. Throughout the period of British occupation and government of the Cape as a Crown colony, Imperial ordinances enforced preferential treatment of British imports into the colony. From 1795 to 1855 the rates of duty on foreign goods ranged from 10 to 15 per cent ad valorem, whereas from 1807 to 1813 British goods entered free and in the other years paid duties rarely exceeding 3 or 3 per cent and never exceeding 5 per cent.

During the whole of this period (1795-1855) the products of the colony enjoyed a tariff preference in Great Britain. This was especially true of wines, which were an important export of the Cape during the first half of the nineteenth century. The Imperial Govern ment did its utmost to foster the industry in the colony and in 1813 granted to Cape wines a preference of two-thirds of the duties payable on the competing wines of Spain and Portugal. The preference was reduced from time to time, but while it continued in substantial

1 But as low as 5 per cent when imported in British ships.

ount the wine industry flourished in the Cape. The successive ictions in the preference gave rise to considerable protest and to onged and bitter agitation in the colony.

he preferences in the colony to British goods were abolished in 5 by the Cape upon its acquiring authority to enact its own ffs. In 1860 Great Britain, in accordance with the stipulations the Cobden treaty with France, reduced the duties on foreign es, thus extinguishing the preference to colonial wines. Most of other preferences on colonial products had been abolished by vious legislation. The arrangement of the new wine duties in 1 and 1862 without preference to colonial wines and on the basis proof strength had an extremely adverse effect, because of the atively high alcoholic content of South African wines, on the pe wine industry and practically excluded its products from the glish market."

THE TARIFF POLICY OF CAPE COLONY, 1855-1898.

In the second half of the nineteenth century the discovery of rich ne fields in the Cape resulted in a decline in the relative importance agriculture and in the development of a South African market for ricultural products. South Africa changed gradually from an exorter to an importer of wheat and flour, meat, dairy products, and her foodstuffs. The wool and ostrich feather farmers who depended the export trade to market their products were favorable to a licy of free trade, and, in the absence of domestic manufacturing dustries, support for protective duties came only from the producers foodstuffs. The ability to levy duties on goods passing through e ports of the Cape but destined for the inland Republics provided n additional factor, however, in support of moderately high customs uties. The tariff, therefore, was retained mainly as a means of ollecting revenue but to some extent also because of the protection afforded to domestic producers of foodstuffs.

The wine growers of the Cape did not forget the advantages they ad enjoyed under the British preferential policy prior to 1860, and hat sentiment there was in the Cape in favor of the policy of imerial preference was found in these years chiefly amongst them and he politicians who spoke for them. These were largely Dutch, and The Afrikander Bond, under the leadership of Mr. Jan Hofmeyr, poke for them in urging upon Great Britain the policy of preferenial treatment of colonial products. Mr. Hofmeyr, at the imperial conference in 1887, at London, made a strong plea for the establishment of intra-imperial preference. In the Cape, Mr. Hofmeyr had already gained, for his program of protection at home and preference n England to the agricultural products of the Cape, the support of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, a power in Cape politics, and soon afterwards premier of the Cape. Mr. Rhodes later explained the origin of his political partnership with the Bond, the Dutch political organization, as follows:

In these days (the eighties) Hofmeyr was chiefly interested in withstanding free trade and upholding protection on behalf of the Dutch, who were agriculturists and

Cf. for the tariff history of this early period, Samuel Evans, Preference and Protection in British South Africa, Ch. XII, in The Burden of Protection, London, 1912, published for The International Free Trade League.

Cf. Sir Lewis Michell, Life of the Right Hon. Cecil J. Rhodes, 1910, vol. 1, p. 95, and James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, 1897 ed., p. 462.

wine growers. I had a policy of my own, which I never disguised from Honey, It was to keep open the road to the north, to secure for British South Africa room in expansion, and to leave time and circumstances to bring about an inevitable federati I therefore struck a bargain with him by which I undertook to defend the protectiv system of Cape Colony and he pledged himself in the name of the Bond not to throw any obstacles in the way of northern expansion.

*

* 4

Mr. Rhodes became an ardent advocate of imperial preference, an urged it upon the imperial authorities at every opportunity. h 1891, reporting a conversation with Lord Salisbury, then premier d England, on this subject, he said:

I adopted the suggestions I had had from Mr. Hofmeyr about a differential ne and said the greatest tie England could make with the Cape Colony was to retur the system of 1858 (i. e., preference to colonial products]. *The right co for the English people is to offer this colony some preferential tariff in regard to the wines over the wines of France and Spain and so give them a practical commerc advantage.

5

On June 29, 1893, in the Cape Parliament, Mr. Rhodes read a letter he had written to Sir William Harcourt, showing that the Cobde treaty had ruined the Cape wine industry, and urging closer comme cial union between the mother country and her colonies, based on system of reciprocal preferences.

EARLY TARIFFS OF OTHER SOUTH AFRICAN TERRITORIES.

The Transvaal and the Orange Free State were not possessed d seaports. Their chief industry was mining and as most of the foodstuffs and other necessaries were imported from overseas, ther imports had to pass through the coast colonies. The tariff history of the Cape and of Natal up to 1898 is largely a story of competition with each other and with Portuguese East Africa for the transi trade to and from the inland Republics and for the opportunity taxing the imports of these Republics as they passed through the ports of coast colonies. Until 1888 the Cape and Natal insisted< retaining all the revenue thus obtained from the taxation of impor from overseas into the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Un 1898 Natal, partly in order to retain as much as possible of the transit trade for her own ports, maintained her tariff on a low level. This exploitation by the coast colonies of their advantageous geographical position was a source of constant friction and ill-feeling in the relations of the Republics with the British colonies.

6

In the Orange Free State and the Transvaal the tariffs were low and with respect to many items were merely nominal. There were no domestic industries to protect and other sources of revenue were more conveniently available. In 1875 the Transvaal succeeded in negotiating a treaty with Portugal which freed her from the customs exactions of the British coast colonies. This treaty provided for the free interchange of the products of the Transvaal and of Portuguese East Africa and limited to 3 per cent ad valorem the duties which Portuguese East Africa could impose on goods imported from overseas to enter the Transvaal via Lourenço Marques on Delagoa Bay. The

4 Michell, Sir Lewis: Op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 230, 231.

Evans, Samuel: Op. cit., p. 94.

Brit. and For. State Papers, vol. 67, pp. 1256–1265.