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39 2 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
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advantages obtained by a Zollverein between con-
tiguous places. Customs regulations, moreover, must
still continue to exist at the ports, as they do even ill
coasting trade, so that, as far as they are an evil, iQter-
Imperial trade would still be affected by them.
(6) The variety of race and business which makes it
expedient for different parts of the Empire to have each
its own tariff, even against other parts, if it is to raise
revenue by indirect taxes, which all must do. The
Indian Empire is obviously so constituted that its in-
habitants cannot be brought into line as consumers with
the European populations of the British Empire. These
populations provide indirect revenue mainly by the
consumption of spirits, beer, tobacco, sugar, and tea j
and sugar alone among these articles is extensively
consumed in India. The people of India, again, are
subject to a tax on saIt not usually imposed on popula-
tions of English race. Still worse, although the Indian
people consume sugar, the article with them is also an
important article of widespread agricultural production,
which would bring the tax-gatherer into close and un-
welcome contact with masses of the people if a duty
on sugar were imposed. On the other hand, I ndia is a
producer of the tea and coffee which are not worth
taxing in India, but are a stand-by for finance Ministers
in other parts of the Empire.
The self-governing colonies, again, in contrast with
the United Kingdom,'naturally desire to impose duties
for purposes of revenue on the manufactures which they
import mainly from Great Britain j while in Great
Britain, among the articles most suitable for taxation
are to be found the tobacco, tea, coffee, and sugar,
which are largely produced in the colonies.
Unless each part of the Empire, therefore, is to
arrange its own tariff, it will be extremely difficult for
it, if not impossible, to raise suitable revenue by means'
of indirect taxe~
(c) This last difficulty is enhanced by the considera-
tion of the" pooling" arrangements among the different