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390 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
to one important instance in which a Customs union.
that of the German Zollverein. has contributed to the
consolidation of an empire; but the cases of the former
description are not to the point, while the single insmnce
of the German Zollverein is not enough to prove that
Customs unions always conduce to a closer union of a
political kind. According to former experience, the
commercial union of the Briti!\h Empire-in time-will
follow the political union; but how far mutual com-
mercial arrangements will assist such an object will
depend on special circumstances and the nature of the
arrangements themselves, which are all matters for
investigation.
Looking at the problem in this way, we cannot but
recognise that the commercial union of the British
Empire, meaning thereby a real Zollverein, or such a
un.ion for commercial purposes as exists between the
different states of the United States. or the different
provinces of the German Empire, in which the same
commercial laws prevail, the same money exists for all
purposes, and, above all, there is a single Customs
barrier against the rest of the world with all internal
barriers abolished, must in the nature of things be
somewhat difficult. The number of separate legislatures
necessitates so many separate commercial codes, which
can only be fused into one by common agreement, or
by the invention of devices like those of the American
Constitution, by which certain subjects are reserved for
a central congress. The same remark applies to money
which is reserved for the central Government by the
Constitutions of both the German Empire and the
United States, but has not yet been reserved in the
British Constitution, while there would be special dif-
ficulties in having a common money in the existence of
places like Canada, which happens to lie within the
radius of the United States banking s1stem, or Gibraltar,
which cannot a1roid having Spanish money for common
use, or India, which has the rupee for monetary unit
and cannot get quit of that unit, or Egypt, which is