ts and raw materials than from foreign countries, and to
these overseas dominions she sends a large proportion of manufactured
goods, containing a high percentage of labour. Thus, says Prof.
Reinsch,[7] "From the point of view of the development and prosperity
of national industry it is important that the exports of the nation
should be composed largely of manufactured goods, the value of which
includes as high as possible an amount of labour cost. The export of
raw material, of coal, of food materials, and of machinery used in
factories, cannot be considered of the highest advantage to the
industrial life of a manufacturing country, nor is it most profitable
from a national point of view to furnish foreign countries with ships,
which help to build up their merchant marines." But according to the
figures of 1903 "only 10 per cent. of the exports of British goods to
the colonies consist of those commodities which the national industry
derives relatively the least profit from, while for foreign countries
the figure is 27 per cent."[8]

{104}

The general colonial trend has been in the direction of deliberately
securing by legislative means a preferential advantage for the home
country. "France," writes Dr. Wilhelm Solf, former German Secretary of
State for the Colonies, "has assimilated Algeria and a portion of her
colonies from the point of view of customs. She regards them almost
completely as within her tariff boundaries, which fact gives French
commerce the advantage over that of other nations trading with these
colonies. In regard to her other colonies France has introduced
preferential tariffs favouring the motherland, and reciprocally the
colonies, which amount to as much as 85 per cent. of the normal duties.
In Tunis, likewise, France has favoured her own trade in important
lines, such as grain, by admitting them free of duty when carried in
French bottoms. Portugal has introduced discriminating customs rates
up to 90 per cent. of the regular tariff in favour of her own colonial
shipping. Spain has acted similarly. England also enjoys tariff
advantages as high as 33 per cent. of the normal rate in her
self-governing colonies. She has in this manner secured for British
industry a market which, without this preference, she would not have
been able to maintain to the same degree. Likewise, the United States
has to a large extent assimilated its colonies in customs matters.
Belgium has, it is true, no pre