“When the hon. member for Rochdale went to Paris to negotiate the French treaty, the first thing he was asked was, What had he to offer? If he had gone to Paris with his hands empty, it was not probable that he would have succeeded in obtaining the concessions which the French Government made to him. Fortunately, however, the hon. gentleman had much to offer. There were heavy duties on wine and other articles of French produce and manufactures, and in consideration of a reduction in those duties the French Government consented to various changes in their tariff which had proved very beneficial not only to this country but to France. It was necessary to bear in mind that in our domestic legislation we differed from France. We at once gave the whole world the benefit of the concessions which had been made to our ally. France, on the other hand, withheld from others the privileges she had conceded to us, and thus retained in her hands the means of bargaining with other Powers for mutual commercial concessions. When one nation sought any favour from another nation, there were various grounds on which the request might be based. An appeal might be made to the generosity of the other Power, but it was doubtful whether that would have much effect; or an appeal might be made to a treaty which gave the applicant the privileges of the most favoured nation, and a claim advanced for certain privileges which had been granted to another State. Therefore it was, above all things, desirable that when one had no concessions to offer in return for the advantages sought, some other Power, which possessed the means of bargaining, should commence the negotiations. That was the reason why France had been allowed to precede us in the present instance, and every concession which was made to her gave us a right to claim the same. If we had taken the initiative, the Italian Government would very naturally have said, ‘You have nothing to give us in exchange for what we give you, and if we freely concede your demands we shall be placed in a bad position in making terms with France.’ So far from Her Majesty’s Government not having endeavoured to make treaties of commerce with other nations, the fact was that there was scarcely a Power in Europe with whom negotiations had not been opened during the last year or two. The Belgian Government were asked to make a treaty of commerce with us, as they had done with France; and it was pointed out to them that it would be an unfriendly act, having entered into a treaty with France, to refuse to negotiate one with England. They replied by asking what we could give to them in return, and they suggested that if they gave to us what they had given to France, we [having nothing of our own to offer them] should consent to capitalise the Scheldt dues. Now, the capitalisation of the Scheldt dues had nothing whatever to do with a