text:  Conceding however this seeming concert of action to be merely fortuitous what will the vice-president of the Board of Trade say to the long-laboured but still unconsummated customs' union between France and Belgium? Was that in the nature of a combination against British commercial interests or was it the reverse? It is no cabinet secret--it has been publicly proclaimed both by the French and Belgian Governments and press that the indispensable basis the _sine qua non_ of that union must be not a calculated amalgamation of not a compromise between the differing and inconsistent tariffs of Belgium and France but the adoption the imposition of the tariff of France for both countries in all its integrity saving in some exceptional cases of very slight importance in deference to municipal dues and _octrois_ in Belgium