THE TARIFF PROPOSALS. Mr Seddon and the Boxers.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 9, 1 September 1900, Page 6

THE TARIFF PROPOSALS. Mr Seddon and the Boxers.

IT is becoming more and more apparent every day that Mr Seddon, notwithstanding his enormous majority, is not the strong man in this Parliament that he was a year or two ago, when parties were more equally divided. Last session, and for many sessions before that, it was Mr Seddon who led the Party and governed the country. To-day, the position is reversed. The Party, or a section of it, leads Mr, Seddon and governs the Government. The Boxers are now the dominant power. Mr Seddon no longer exercises undisputed sway. More powerful men even than Mr Seddon have arisen in the persons of Mr Gilfedder, Mr G. W. Russell, Mr Morrison, and others of the Boxers, who, by dint of much plotting and laying of traps, already enjoy the distinction of keeping the Government in and kicking their measures out. • ■ • There have already been many illustrations of these insidious but resolute encroachments upon Mr Seddon's prestige in the few weeks of the present sassion. Mr Atkinson satirically alluded to one the other evening, when he pictured the Premier, before his party, submitting his own salary to Dutch auction, and gradually cheapening it from £1750 to £1600 in his anxiety to secure the sanction of the Gilfedders, the Bussells, the Collinses, and the Morrisons to an advance. The proposal to appoint two additional Ministers was another case in point. The Boxers decided that one was sufficient, and, whether he liked it or not, Mr Seddon was compelled to be content with one. ;{; ;,; V Now, the Boxers have put their foot down heavily on Mr Seddon's tariff proposals. They absolutely refuse to consent to them, and their ultimatum is that the Colonial Treasurer must re-cast his proposals, so as to re-impose the duties upon machinery, candles, and matches. This is significant. Here we have the anomaly of a leader with an enormous majority, after submitting remissions of taxation to which he had given anxious and careful thought, being compelled within a week, by a vigorous and determined section of his followers, to swallow his own proposals and accept theirs. Verily, Mr Seddon's position to-day is a weaker and more humiliating one

than he has ever occupied since he became leader of the House. • • • This is, of course, if Mr Seddon succumbs to the pressure that is being brought to bear upon him by his own followers. Practically, they have asked him to choose between his tariff policy and his seat on the Treasury benches. They are willing that he should continue in office — or they say so — but they are determined to throw his tariff policy out. And, whether they agree with the remission of duty or not, there is no gainsaying the fact that they are delighted at having got the Premier in a corner. For weeks they have been giving exhibitions of their strength, and submitting the Government to irritating humiliations ; and now the crisis they have schemed and plotted for has come about, and they are masters of the situation. * • • We wish Mr Seddon joy of his enormous majority — this incomparably strong crew of the good Liberal ship — but it seems to us that if he would avoid an open mutiny on the high seas, he must take immediate steps to suppress plotting in the forecastle. There are amongst his incomparable crew too many would-be captains and chief officers, and, sooner or later, he will be compelled to give them the alternative of consistent loyalty or honourable opposition. # * • The present situation is not an enviable one for Mr Seddon. That he ig conscientiously averse to any policy that would injure manufacturing industry there can be no possible doubt whatever ; and he is a competent judge whether or not the proposed tariff changes would cause that injury. But the Boxers are leaving nothing to his judgment. They have decided that the duty shall not be taken off agricultural and mining machinery, or candles and matches, and the general opinion at the moment of writing is that the Boxers will prevail, and that Mr Seddon, notwithstanding his enormous majority, must give way. Things have indeed changed.