THE FISCAL QUESTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXV, Issue 252, 23 November 1903, Page 3

THE FISCAL QUESTION.

MB CHAMBERLAIN AT CARDIFF. LONDON, Nov. 21. I Mr Chamberlain addressed a mevti ing at Cardiff; arid received ft tre--1 mentions ovation, lit tivi cotirsfi af a. spirited speech he dealt ni&iiify with thn necessity for fostering Home industries*; >Vwl- the creation oi a Home demand for coal. He also dealt with the effect o'i the American tariff on the tin plate industry. A tmmtbhM of hearty support of Mr Chambferlain'a policy was unanimously carried: . LONDON, No*. 22, At Cardiff Mf fiMarirberluin addressed 4000 people, including Mr W: J.Bryan, the American Presidential cWdidate'. Mr Chamberlain announced his ifrtflivttofi of visiting the agricultural districts, Wvtf declared the the towns did not require milcr? more persuasion. During his six weeks' campaign he ha'd made considerable progress, While the Free Food League; the new fcavu of Adullam, and man£ Of his p-al'ty opponents were prepared to. treat the tariff reform as a hatio'tfel imperial question, Sir H. CampbelWJß'ilnernian and his followers were responsible for throwing the ■question into the furnace of local politics. He accepted Sir M.- remarkable declaration at llristo-1 with gratitude, though opposed to himSßH'. The Duke of Devonshire seemed content fo ! drag on the Government's wheels. It was p. curious ambition. Mr Uoschen was Similarfy desirous 6'f going 'down to posterity as a draff on the wheel. After Lord Hugh Cecil and Mr Winston Churchill, the great twin brothers of politics, were converted at u recent Birmingham meeting, packed with Kltdfca.l free traders, into supporting the policy of retaliation, iid felt hopeful of them. These waverings, qualifications and hesitations were very different to the sonorous orthodoxy of three weeks ago, Mr Chamberlain warned Cardiff that the time would come when they must depend upon our Home coal trade ; therefore it would be better to foster- Home industries dependent on the coal trade. If they had not been hound hand and foot they might now have all the American tin plate trade. The Welsh tin-plating' industry had increased by leaps and bounds until the McKinley tariff was made. It doubled each decade; aggregating 450,000 tons in 1892. If the normiil rise had continued it would now be 900,000 tons: Last year's exports to America; 6nc6 t\w principal market, was 65,000 tons, and even that was bound to go. As the result «f the McKinley tariff the American tin-plating industry had grown from 550 tons to 400,000 tons. Owing to the Boer war and colonial demands the Welsh tin-plate industry had revived somewhat, but the exports were still 80,000 tons below what they were a decade since. If the American trade had been retained, instead of losing 80,000 tons we would have gained 320,000 tons. Besides the loss of trade there had been great loss of wages, amounting to* hundreds at thousands l in one industry alone. American and German dumping of tin plate bars and billets had temporarily improved the Welsh tin-plate industry. Lysaght ■and Company, the well known manufacturers, had informed him that they had bought 50,000 tons of foreign steel at a price considerably below British, but declared they were willing to sacrifice such advantage for the sake of arrangements with the colonies, giving British iron the preference aver foreign.

SPEECH BY MR HALDANE. LONDON, Nov. 21. Mr I{. B. Haidane, speaking at Romford, said trade was healthy, though less progressive than was desirable. What was needed was better methods, enormously better education and social reforms, and a really great Minister of Commerce. r Mr Goschen, in a letter to the Times, emphasises the importance of the Board of Trade Blue Book calculations showing the great invisible reports,