IMPERIAL POLITICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 203, 24 February 1912, Page 5

IMPERIAL POLITICS

THE FISCAL SYSTEM. THE SELFISHNESS OF COLONIAL PREFERENCE. "By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Received 24, Mo a.m. London, February 23 In the House of Commons Captain Tryon moved an amendment to the Ad-dress-in-Reply, declaring the Governffienf 8 refusal to modlfiy the fiscal policy imperilled the advantages of overseas preference, and deprived the country of fair treatment from foreign countries, adversely affecting labor conditions. Mr. McNamara said it was eight years since Mr. Chamberlain's doleful predictions that the country was heading for the roclcs, all of which had been falsified. Unemployment and pauperism had considerably declined. Mr. Alfred Lyttelton claimed that it Was not unnatural that Canada's sacrifice of American reciprocity should have suggested some requital. It had become important to fortify the cohesion of the Empire. Already Canada, Australia and New Zealand had almost completed preferential negotiations. The policy of independent commercial action overseas would cause friction. The time had arrived to end the futile academic objections to colonial preference. Mr. Robertson did not know what advantage the colonies would get from foreign countries which they could not get through England. "If we entangled ourselves with colonial preference we might in turn lose the advantages of the most favored nation clanses. It ill became them to make proposals rendering food dearer. The harvests have failed in Australia and India before now. What would napped if we reversed the fiscal policy smd placed our dependencies on the wheat of the dominions? Tariff Teform was merely the exploitation of one part of the population in the interests of another. That is the simple explanation of the protectionists' policy in regard to the self-governing colonies." The amendment was negatived by 258 to 193.