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402 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUi>IES
t
partmental view of the Post Office, whereas there are
other considerations of a vital kind for the Empire
that should not be overlooked. If we are to be a
united Empire, the whole body should be knit together
by lines of steamers under the Imperial flag which
omit no port of consequence, present or prospective,
in their visits-direct lines of steamers, for instance,
between East and South Africa and the mother country,
or between East and South Africa and India, Australia,
and Canada. In this matter we must add, after the
evidence laid before the Shipping Subsidies Commit-
tee, that the IIl1:perial authorities, hitherto, have been
remiss. "Unconsidered trifles" of trade between
British ports have been left for our German friends
to pick up, and the employment of British shipping,
essential to the life of the Empire, has been corre-
spondingly diminished or checked. This ought not to
be. Adequate shipping facilities under the British flag
should be provided between all parts of the Empire as
a matter of the common business of all. A special
union for such an end, besides the immediate good it
would do, would clearly help towards a more general
federation.
Monetary union, again, should be promoted as far
as practicable, and the subject, at any rate, should be
studied in common. A complete union for this pur-
pose, at any rate for along time, for the reasons already
given, appears to be out of the question. But the
money of the mother country is already the money of
South Africa and Australia, and there are some points
in which these portions of the Empire are mutually
interested with us, such as the division of the profit
on token coinage and the arrangements as to the in-
trinsic value of such coins, which ought not to be left,
as they now are, to the decision of the mother couht;:y
alone, or to be matters of direct 6>rrespondence and
bargain with~ach colony. A complete monetary union
is also more likely to come about all the sooner if it is
a subject of regular official discussion.