The Second Colonial Conference (1894) at ottawa and Imperial Commercial Union

Abstract

In the history of British Colonial (Imperial) Conferences, the second one which was held in Ottawa, 1894, has been almost neglected by historians. The reason they have pointed out is that it was not held in the mother country but in a colony or that much of its discussion was not concentrated on political or military problem but on commercial union. It must be mentioned, however, that they seem to have certain bias that the history of British Empire should be written from the mother country's and constitutinal point of view. In contrast with them, when we examine Ottawa Conference in the light of development of imperial trade policy, one would discover its importance and be obliged to re-appraise its value in the history of British Empire. Ottawa Conference was summoned by Canadian government who, with other self-governing colonies, wished to establish imperial commercial union. For several years they had demanded imperial government to call the second Colonial Conference, but the rejection of the mother country obliged them to summon the conference by themselves. Therefore it was a conference which offered them for the first time to discuss officialy the imperial trade policy question. After long sessions they passed some resolutions calling for the commercial union by means of imperial preferential tariff based on their existing protective tariff policy. Clearly this was the first public resistance against the mother country's traditional free trade policy. The growing sentiment of "colonial nationalism" had made them further adopt the resolution that if the mother country could not accept preferential tariff, they should make their effort to give each other the inter-colonial reciprocity. So it would be safe to say that Ottawa Conference was not only the first expression of commercial independence of self-governing colonies but also the first step toward the famous Ottawa Agreement, 1932, which achieved the completion of imperial preferential tariff system. In spite of these importances, Ottawa Conference could not get immediate and practical result. The strong opposition of the mother country, difference of trade policies among colonies and unmatured inter-colonial trade have limited the development of inter-colonial reciprocity. For the final completion of imperial preferential tariff system, they had to wait for the radical conversion of British trade policy through the great economic crisis after World War I.