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THE DREAM OF A BRITISH ZOLLVEREIN 393
States which are the indispensable adjunct of a Customs
union. • The idea is that no province of the union is to
have a Customs barrier against another part. Duties
are to be levied in common. There must be a common
purse, accordingly, not only for the Customs duties
which are to be imposed on articles imported from the
rest of the world, but on similar commodities produced
at home. I n other words, the Customs and Excise
revenue of each part of -the union is to be dependent
on the vigilance of the revenue authorities in every
other part. In such a union for the British Empire,
our sPlrit revenue, for instance, would depend on the
vigilance of authorities in Australia and South Africa.
And then out of the common purse each State of the
-Empire would receive its share. In what way the
shares are to be fixed, with heterogeneous populations
like India concerned, will be no easy matter, and it will
be still more difficult to provide the automatic re-
adjustments, according to the changes in population at
each census, which existed in the German Zollverein.
(d) Difficulties arising from the uncertain political
status of States or Provinces which form a portion of
the Empire as far as the burden of defence is concerned,
and which are popularly reckoned as within the Em-
pire. but which are either not internationally recognised
as part of the Empire at all or are subject to special
arrangements by political treaties, as, for instance, our
West African Protectorates. The doubtful position of
Egypt has already been referred to in connection with
the question of common money. but in the question of
a Zollverein the status of that country would be still
more embarrassing. Egypt is legaUy a part of the
Turkish Empire, and it is bound by various inter-
national stipulations of that Empire as well as stipula-
tions special to itself as regards shipping and navigation.
'to make it part of a British Zollverein would involve
prolonged negotiations with Europeatl Powers that
would almost certainly fail, or a rupture of treaties in
time of peace involving a risk of war and the equally