THE CHAMBERLAIN BIRTHDAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 17

THE CHAMBERLAIN BIRTHDAY.

ALLEGED POLITICAL USE. MFbom Oub Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, September 1. Early in July the Lyttelton Harbour Board cabled birthday congratulations to Mr Joseph Chamberlain, the message being addressed to Mrs Chamberlain. At to-day's meeting of the board an acknowledgment of the cable was received from the secretary of the Tariff. Reform League, "This strikes me as interesting/ commented Mr T. ,E. Taylor, M.P. " We send a cable message to Mr Chamberlain, and get an acknowledgment from ' a partisan organisation. I believe that the forwarding of these cable messages was instigated by the league, and the board's message was sent at the 6Ugg-es-tion of certain Conservative newspaper editors in this city. Not that I object to the board having congratulated Mr Chamberlain. He has been a brilliant man in Imperial politics, and I was quite willing with others to join in tending our good wishes, but we have been used a& a kind of catspaw for the Tariff Reform League of London. lam entirely opposed to the propaganda of this league. I am quite prepared to magnify the work done by Mr Cnamberlain, but not for the purpose of having the board's bona fide good wishes turned into political capital by a bitter political organisation largely controlling the cable news at the present time. I think it is a matter for regret that these secret methods should have been adopted, and had I known that the message was not to be sent to Mr Chamberlain " The Chairman : It did go to him. Mr Taylor : Why doesn't he acknowledge it? The Chairman : I don't know. I have a copy of the cable message here. Mr Taylor : A great many people wonder whether the league is master of Mr Chamberlain, or whether Mr Chamberlain is master of the league. 1 resent the manner in which some gentlemen in this city induced the board to send a message that was really so much material for the league, which was the object for which the suggestion had been made. I think we were very neatly worked as a board for political purposes. Dealing editorially with the matter, the Press states: — "Most people will share in the surprise expressed by Mr T. E. Taylor on finding that the secretary of the Tariff Reform League has taken upon himself to acknowledge at least some- of the messages of personal congratulation sent to Mrs Chamberlain on the occasion of Mr Chamberlain's birthday. Although some of the senders of those messages unquestionably sympaj thise with tariff icform, yet there is no doubt that the intention on this occasion was to sink all party differences, and to tend a personal message of sympathy, which should ch^er the stricken statesman in his enforced retirement. It was intended to hold a gathering in the Albert Hall on Mr Chamberlain* birthday, at which Mrs Chamberlain would be present to receive the congratulations addressed to her distinguished husband. It was found impossible to get a non-political gathering thoroughly representative of both sides. A meeting was duly held at the Albert Hall, but it was purely a tariff reform demonstration. This bein4 the case, Mrs Chamberlain did not attend, nor were the m«?sages of congratulation read at the meeting. The bulk of them were treated sis so entirely personal that Mr Chamberlain did not allow them to be published. Practically only those that came from the overseas dominions wer« given to the newspapers. The editors of the New ZeaLrfid journals, who sent a

joint cable of congratulation addressed I to Mrs Chamberlain, received a card of thanks from Mr Chamberlain by the last mail, and if the eender of any other .message has not received a similar acknowledgment we imagine it was due purely to an oversight. We agree with Mr Taylor that thanks from the Tariff Reform League are alike gratuitous and misplaced. But his feaT that the Harbour Board has in some way been 'got at' for the purpose of furthering the propaganda of the league is entirely - groundless. We resent as strongly as anyone the apparent . impertinence of the Tariff Reform League in thrusting in its oar where it has no right to do so."