The Australian Premier's Views.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7926, 6 October 1904, Page 5

The Australian Premier's Views.

Received Oct. 6, at 9.48 a.nx

MELBOURNE, This "day.

Mr Reid, on .being interviewed with reference to Mr' Balfour's speech, said that, if allowed' to hazard an opinion on necessarily compressed cable reports, he would say . that ■Mr Balfour had found .the road on which he had been travelling onewhichhad.no sign.post of victory, upon it, and.he was anxious to escape from a definite project which entails opposition and defeat, to get into the cloudy atmosphere of future conferences. The idea was a good one. Conferences themselves would .be invaluable, and should be held at regular intervals. But the difference between the policy which the Government will submit to the electors of England on the subject of fiscal changes and the project of holding a grand conference after the election takes place was imiversal. A conference binds no one down to anything. If Mr Balfour would state now and definitely the particular questions he proposes to submit to the conference, and the policy of the British Government on those questions, he would then admit that any criticism would not be so obvious. But Mr Balfour has not given any indication -as-, to,the lines of the policy that the British Goverment would submit to such a conference. If the conference was intended to supersede Mr Chamberlain's- scneme, then the scheme is "removed from the sphere of practical politics. A conference could not make preferential.arrangements. If, as is generally admitted, the Government is defeated ■' within the next two years, then the question would be shelved during five years of the succeeding Parliament. / ' ■