BRITISH POLITICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 153, 7 October 1910, Page 5

BRITISH POLITICS.

•MR. BALFOUR'S SPEECH. By Cable.—Preee Assoc La tion. —Copyright London, October 5. Mr. Balfour, in a speech/ at Edinburgh, said that if trade unions we're perverted into political associations, members would be forced to contribute to the payment of members of Parliament with whose politics many disagreed, and the recalcitrants would be deprived by t/he unions of their benefits, which would be intolerable tyranny. "NOT A TRUMPET BLAST." (MR. BALFOUR OX SMALL FREEHOLDERS. Received 7, 0.35 a.m. London, October 6. Mr. Balfour, spe king at Edinburgh, said that whatever might be the success of the Constitutional Conference, the result in the future would be good. The representation of Labor in Parliament was necessary, but he refused to admit that the payment of members was the only alternative to the reversal of the Osborne decision. As the Unionists were not physicians called in to deal with a case they would not prescribe. If reversal or payment were the only alternatives, he accepted the latter. He emphasised the necessity of a great increase of small freeholders and advocated Government assistance for the purchase of freeholds. He looked forward to Greater Britain entering the conference with a Government whose attitude was one of thick-headed obstinacy towards colonial preference. The .Morning Post, in dealing with Mr. Balfour's reference to the Constitutional Conference, shows that the prospects of settlement are so shadowy as not to be worth serious consideration. It complains thiat his speech is less of a trampet call than an impartial summary similar to an annual register.