NAVY AND TARIFF.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 472, 2 April 1909, Page 5

NAVY AND TARIFF.

■ » THE UNIONIST TWINS. MR. BALFOUR AND COLONIAL OFFERS. "PARTY CAPITAL." (dt TEr.EcnArn—euess association—copmianx.) London, March 31. Tho ' "Westminster Gazette" (Liberal) chargos Mr. Balfour (Leader of tho Opposition) with making party capital out of tho colonial offer of Dreadnoughts by linking them with tho fiscal question. Tho "Gazctto" agrees, however, that tho present is a favourable moment to consider the whole question of colonial co-operation in Imperial defence. NOT A RELIEF FOR THE TAXPAYER. MR. BALFOUR'S PLEA. London, March 31. Mr. Balfour, in his specch at tho Agricultural Hall, in criticising Mr. Asquith's method of accepting New Zealand's offer of a Dreadnought, declared that such splendid patriotic liberality ought not to bo used for tho relief of tho British taxpayer or as a subvention to tho Motherland's pecuniary necessities, but as an additional guarantee of tho maintenance of tho Empire's supremacy. [The Unionists, from the naval standpoint, de-\ siro more Dreadnoughts; from tho tariff reform standpoint, they desiro to see Liberal ficetrado financo crippled by Dreadnoughts. From both standpoints, therefore, they desiro to see colonial Dreadnoughts treated as something extra, "not to be used for the relief of the British taxpayer, but as nn additional guarantee," etc. Colonial Dreadnoughts that would lighten the task of tho Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer —who is struggling to build fleets and at tho same time to provide the old age pensions that New Zealand's aged now enjoy—are avowedly not what the Unionists want.]