§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Marquess of RIPON),in moving the Second reading of this Bill, said it was a measure which was not likely to meet with any opposition, because the object of it was to relieve the Australian Colonies of certain disabilities which they laboured under, and which did not apply to other Colonies of the Crown. By the Act for the Better Government of Her Majesty's Australian Colonies passed in 1850, those Colonies were restrained from making any fiscal arrangements with any other Colony whatever which, involved differential treatment of any kind, and that restriction applied not only to the Australian Colonies en bloc, but to each separate Colony, so that one Colony could not make any such arrangement with another. The Colonies after a time sought to be relieved from those disabilities, especially as regarded their arrangements amongst themselves within the limits of Australia, and Parliament saw fit in 1873 to pass a Bill enabling them to make such arrangements between themselves and with the Colony of New Zealand, but not with any other Colony. That, of course, removed to a certain extent the disabilities of this nature under which the Australian Colonies lay, but it still left them subject to a certain degree of disability, because although Victoria could make such an arrangement with New South Wales, neither New South Wales nor Victoria could do so with Canada or the Cape, which latter Colonies, however, were able to enter into such arrangements between themselves or any other Colony except the Australian Colonies. The Colony of New Zealand was thus left in a very peculiar position—namely, that she was the only one of Her Majesty's Colonies which could make an arrangement of the kind referred to with any other Colony whatsoever, because, though not an Australian Colony, she was allowed to make fiscal 1358 arrangements with the Colonies of Australia or with Canada or the Cape. At the conference last year at Ottawa, at which his noble Friend opposite (the Earl of Jersey) represented Her Majesty's Government—and he was glad to have that opportunity of expressing the thanks of the Government to his noble Friend for the able manner in which he discharged his important duties at that Conference—this particular matter engaged the attention and enlisted the interest of the members, and a resolution was passed by the Conference asking that the Australian Colonies might be relieved of the disability in question. When the Government came to consider the able Report of his noble Friend, this question naturally came very prominently under their attention, and neither he as Secretary of State for the Colonies nor his colleagues in the Government could see that any justification existed for leaving the Australian Colonies under a disability which did not apply to other Colonies of the Crown. Consequently the Government came to the conclusion that it would be only right to meet the views of the Conference, to abolish the disability, and to allow all the Colonies equally to make fiscal arrangements among themselves, though not to make such arrangements with the United Kingdom, because in that case considerations and obligations of treaties with foreign countries would enter into the matter. The whole and sole object of the measure, therefore, was to give to the Australian Colonies at their urgent request relief from the disability he had explained. His Lordship concluded by moving the Second Reading of the Bill.
§ Motion agreed to.