Imperial Preference

Imperial Preference was a system of mutual tariff reduction enacted throughout the British Empire as well as the then British Commonwealth (now simply known as Commonwealth of Nations) following the Ottawa Conference of 1932. As Commonwealth Preference, the proposal was later revived in regard to the members of the Commonwealth of Nations. Joseph Chamberlain, the powerful colonial secretary from 1895 until 1903, argued vigorously that Britain could compete with its growing industrial rivals (chiefly the United States and Germany) and thus maintain Great Power status. The best way to do so would be to enhance internal trade inside the worldwide British Empire, with emphasis on the more developed areas — Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa — that had attracted large numbers of British settlers. The Dominions enacted policies of imperial preference in the late 19th and early 20th century: Canada (1897), New Zealand (1903), South Africa (1903), and Australia (1907). Due to its commitments to free trade, Britain did not reciprocate these trade policies until the 1932 Ottawa Conference amid the Great Depression. The Ottawa Agreement had little, if any, effect on intra-Empire trade. In 1660, the practice of "Old Subsidy" gave certain imported colonial products a virtual monopoly in England, effectively starting a form of colonial preference for sugar. By 1840, this had been extended such that more than eighty commercial goods were protected, as the Corn Laws protected some colonial agricultural goods. Colonial conferences held throughout the late 19th century arranged closer economic unions between Dominions and the mother country, with the Dominions giving preferences in exchange for defence commitments or common commercial, patent, immigration and shipping policies. In the late 1800s and especially during the early 1900s, Imperial Preference was considered a method of promoting unity within the British Empire and sustaining Britain's position as a global power as a response to increased competition from the protectionist Germany and United States.