BRITISH POLITICS. SOME ADVERSE OPINIONS TO FISCAL REFORM.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 1030, 24 October 1903, Page 2

BRITISH POLITICS. SOME ADVERSE OPINIONS TO FISCAL REFORM.

By Telegraph—Press AssociationCopyright.) LONDON, October 22. Lord Hugh Cecil, speaking at Oldham, said that a profit and loss relationship would not unite the Motherland and the but rather cause quarrels. Money was a low ideal as a bond of Empire. Mr Winston Churchill spoke, declaring that if a wave of protection was not sweeping over the country, Conservatives would probably have endorsed retaliation unanimously. Government interference with business was usually stupid and often corrupt.; Mr Chamberlain, referring to Mr Ritchie’s speech at Croydon, stated that Mr Ritchie was periecely willing to keep the Corn Tax, but threatened to resign rather than give Canada preference. What was the result ? “We stood face to face with the colonies, and said not only, we will not impose a tax to give you preference, but, now we have a tax not adding a farthing to the cost of living and we insist' on its abolition lest we are obliged to give our kinsmen real preference. Thai made the situation critical. We could not afford to lose the Chancellor of me Exchequer the day before the Budget was delivered ; hence the tax was abolished, but Mr Balfour and I decided that we would submit the subject to the electors.”