THE FISCAL QUESTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 246, 16 November 1903, Page 3

THE FISCAL QUESTION.

LONDON, Nov. 13. Mr Balfoul received an • ovation at the bantj|uet at Bristol. He said the fiscal 'question had'■always been an open one with Conservative Unionists. Retaliation had often been preached, but latterly it fell lor the first time on the ears attuned to hoar it. The public demanded certain change, in the fiscal system, and the Government had formed a Cabinet entirely favourable to fiscal reform fitting the country's present situation and needs. Sir Michae, Hicks-Beach supported Mr Balfour's Sheffield policy, also tthat night's speech. If the choice lay, as he thought,, between standing still and a genuine change of policy, he preferred the latter. MR BALFOUR'S SPEECH. Received 15, at 12.29 a.m. LONDON, Nov. 15. The crowd dragged Mr Balfour's carriage for two miles amidst tremendous enthusiasm. Mr Balfour said "My opponents fight shy of my scheme and spend their tim'a in abusing Mr Cliainterlain, attributing sinister motions and unavowed ambitions. They are forgetful of the fact that he abandoned a great office in order to preach the doctrine that ho believes to be virtually connected with the future of the British Empire.

"My opponents forget that true Freetrade implies unrestrained intercourse between the products ol' nations without imports or exports being impeded by artificial barriers. They seem indifferent to the fact that every manufacturing country but ourselves repudiated this interpretation," The most favoured nation clause was a mystic phrase, far from being a sheet anchor to our export trade. Opponents declared that retaliation would offent the susceptibilities of the Powers also. " Does Britain e:ist on suffrance Precisely the .same arguments were used in regard to the fleet. Tariffs were like fleets, which may be used provocatively, " but we need not admit o* incompetence, but wisely use weapons we forge. If the colonies give preference are the opponents to fiscal reform going to allow them to be penalised by objecting to foreign Powers. I should have thought that if anything could have stirred the sluggish blood or disturbed the self-complacency of so-called Freetraders, it woujd hftvg been the thought that one of the great colonies for the sake of the Empire had given the Motherland special treatment. He could never have believed that a Britisher would sit passive, sullen, and unresisting, watching the huge injustice of this colony being penalised for such an offence and reject with profound contempt the arguments based on the actual moment leaving out of account the tendencies which are moulding the future commercial fortunes of the world It was little short of national lunacy not to recognise that these tendencies were li)imjca} to Britain and stark staring folly 'not to take steps to prevent the growth of this state.