Man for man the people of the colonies, leaving out India, consume British products out of all proportion to foreigners. The figures fluctuate from year to year, but taking the countries with which the United Kingdom carries on the greatest amount of trade a sufficiently accurate average can be given of the ordinary annual consumption per head of British manufactures in each. In Germany and the United States this consumption is about 8s. per head, in France 9s., in Canada £1 15s., in the West Indies £2 5s., in South Africa £3, in Australasia nearly £8. Thus three or four millions of people in Australasia take more of British goods than about fifty millions of people in Germany, and nearly as much as sixty millions of people in the United States. Only an artificial boundary separates Canada from the United States, yet an emigrant who goes north of that boundary immediately begins to purchase more than three times as much of British goods as one who goes south of it. As a customer to the British artizan one Australian is worth sixteen Americans; one South African is worth seven or eight Germans. Figures such as these have suggested the remark that 'trade follows the flag.' It is perhaps a more adequate explanation to say that trade follows not merely the flag, with the protection and prestige which it gives, but that it follows along the line of {290} the tastes, customs and habits of life which the emigrant carries with him; along the line of intimate social and financial connection such as that which exists between England and her colonies. The lowest prices current do not altogether determine the direction of commerce. Social, political, financial and even sentimental considerations unite to create the wants of a people and so in a measure to give tendencies to trade. Putting all these facts together it is claimed that a national policy which inclined emigration towards the colonies would create with great rapidity new markets for British products and would send back in increasing volume the productions which Britain wants to buy, while adding greatly to the strength and self-sustaining capacity of the whole nation. Hence it is that many advocates of British unity sincerely believe that the adoption of preferential trade relations within the Empire is the readiest way to the great end in view. They hold that trade advantage constitutes the best outward token of national union, and by its sense of common benefit would do more than anything else to make all willing to contribute to national expense. This view is held very strongly in Canada, South Africa and the West Indies: less importance is attached to it in New Zealand and still less in Australia.