Europe in ruins, I quite agree, but does the right hon. Gentleman think that those ruins are going to be built up in the next two or three years? I very much doubt it. The point I was making is that we cannot afford to neglect these markets of the Empire which per head are of far more value to us than any other. To think that because they have a small population they are therefore of minor importance is altogether to miss the real scale of the Dominions as they are to-day, let alone what they may be in the future. What is the meaning of the extraordinary disparity in purchases per head by those who live in the distant parts of the Empire and those who live in foreign countries? No doubt to a very large extent it is due to similarities of taste, similarities of speech, customs and in- clinations, but it has been very materially stimulated by a preference. Take the case of Australia alone. For 24 years before Preference was given the trade of this country with Australia remained stationary. The trade of Australia was not stationary, but the trade of this country with Australia did not move. In the seven years after Preference was given that trade went up by £14,000,000 a year until there was an increase of 63 per cent. of the whole import trade. That is an instance of the benefits which we have received from Preference. Now we find the Dominions asking us, as they have done before, if we will not give them some recognition of the interest which they have shown in Empire trade in the way of reciprocity, and these proposals, which we have agreed to with them, are our answer to that invitation. How are they going to be treated by the Labour party? I do hope that they will be treated with all the sympathy possible. I listened, I must say, with some concern, to what the Leader of the Opposition said on this subject. He said, indeed, as I understood him, that his party did not object to remitting duties on Empire produce, in cases in which duties had already been imposed for revenue purposes, but that, when it come to imposing new taxation in order to give preference, he put that in a different category. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"] Then evidently I have interpreted him correctly. Why? The hon. Member said, "We are against food duties on principle." What principle? I could understand if he said, "We take the great staple foods of the people, which are really necessaries of life, and on principle we are not prepared even to risk a rise in prices of those necessaries, even though it be proposed to put duties only on those foods which come from foreign countries, and not from the Empire." I could understand that principle. But if food is to be interpreted as including everything which a human being can eat, then I do not understand a principle which says, "We can tax a man's boots, his hats or his clothes—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]—but we must not tax apples." That does not seem to me to be a principle which would rest upon any logic or common sense, and, indeed, I do not expect that this principle of not taxing food is going to be carried to a rigid extremity. Per- haps the right hon. Gentleman can inform me, will his Government abolish all food taxes—