BRITISH POLITICS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XII, Issue 1070, 11 December 1903, Page 2

BRITISH POLITICS.

THE FISCAL CONTROVERSY,

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyrighl

London, Deo. 9, The Duke of Argyll writes: “lam all in favor of experimental legislation for preference, accepting the offer of the groat colonies, and responding to their patriotic Imperial movement. Lord Onslow, speaking at the London Central Chambers of Agriculture and Farmers’ Club joint dinner, said there was apparently no crusado amongst the farming classes against Mr Chamberlain’s proposals. Mr Chaplin declared there was some danger of connection of the proposals with the Government’s authorised programme. There was no certainty there would be any taxation of food. Once workers obtained protection of manufacturers, and as soma share of preference would bo given to the colonies, it should go to the farmer. Ho urged them to support Mr Chamberlain. They would not find a better champion.The London County Counoil has authorised an enquiry into the conditions of production of foreign tramway rails bought by the Government, Loudou Council, and provincial Corporations, especially as regards the hours of labor and wages. Mr Haldane, speaking at Oxford, said nobody would deny that a large number of manufacturers wore hit by foreign tariffs. The publio desired to know what Mr Chamberlain’s plan was. Personally he had the gravest doubt as to the possibility of binding the Empire together on a fiscal basis at all. Moreover, if they excluded imports they would exclude corresponding exports. It rested with Mr Chamberlain to prove that the proposals would not make the nation poorer.

Mr Courtney, a future Liberal candidate for West Edinburgh sea, in an address declared that Mr Chamberlain’s plan if adopted would make England a second or third-rate Power. He added: " Herbert Spencer told me a month ago : “ I want you to say this, and I want everybody to go to the root of the matter: What moral basis justifies any moral interference with my freedom of buying if I chose in an honest market ?’ " There was no such moral basis. Mr Richard Cavendish, member for Lonsdale, speaking at Ulvcrstone, declared : *• I am entirely opposed to Mr Chamberlain’s policy. I agree to retaliation in specific cases of dumping, but 1 fear that next election will not be fought on Mr Balfour’s policy.” Lord James, of Heresford, addressing a Unionist meeting at Salisbury, said he was a full believer in the dootrine of Freetrade. Protection would be fought by a million in the Unionists’ ranks, and not from without. He urged Unionists to see whether they were unable to maintain a difference of opinion without destroying the party. Mr Winston Churchill, at Whitby, said Mr Chamberlain on returning from South Africa missed a splendid opportunity to set the publio departments in order and save the country many millions a year. He chose fiscal revolution. Protection was rotten and unsound.

Mr Beckett, member for Whitby, said protection was a gigantic game, one wherein whoever won the unfortunate consumer lost.

Mr Wanklyn Bradford said the ranks of the Free Fooders included but few commercial men, Sir M. Hicks-Beaoh claimed to be a great Imperialist, yet 80 years ago he declined to buy the Delagoa Bay territory, which was obtainable at a very small cost, and point blank refused in 1996 to find money to meet Lord Lansdowne’s requisition to bring the Army up-to-date. He was much cursed with a provincial mind and always thwarted Mr Chamberlain’s colonial policy. The Free Food League was permeated with aristocratio prejudice against those very democratic communities, our self-governing colonies. That feelrng of caste produced friction during the war between some of the English officers and some of the colonial officers, but could not bo permitted to hamper Imperial Federation. He defied Mr Churchill to prove that Mr Chamberlain’s proposals increased the cost of living. The Standard says Mr Sifton’s unpatriotic self-assertiveneas is due to a passing irritation over the Alaska award. The speech is significant, reminding us of the governing fact that if colonists are subjects of the Empire they are also and in tho first place, Australians, South Africans, and Canadians, going to make their own state a nation complete in all points, which is their main object in politics. We cannot blame them, but it is their deliberate purpose to restrict any competition likely to thwart the development of their own manufactures, consistent that preference in our favor is held out as a compensation to our proposed burdens. At the Royal Colonial Institute a paper was read by Dr Hillior on the subject of preferential trade. Sir Neville Lubbock, the President, said Mr Chamberlain’s proposals were those of a minority report of a Royal Commission twenty years ago. Freetrade meant absence of artificial interference with natural conditions, hence he as a freetrader was opposed to Mr Chamberlain.

Speaking at Oxted, Lord Burghclere said under Mr Chamberlain’s plan either agricultural prices would rise, in which ease the cost of production would be seriously increased, or if agricultural prices wero stationary whilo prices of other commodities rose agriculture would bo more depressed than ever. The dumping of bankrupt stock into England had been stopped, and dumped goods would go elsewhere and enable manufacturers to undersell us in neutral markets.