BRITAIN.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 September 1915, Page 5

BRITAIN.

MINERS OPPOSE CONSCRIPTION. MILITANT MRS. PANKHURST. (Times and Sydney Sun Services.) Received Sept. 21, 4.35 p.m. London, Sept. 20. Fifty-five thousand organised workmen, chiefly Monmouthshire miners, passed a resolution against conscription. Mr. James Winsbone, acting president of the South Wales Miners' Federation, said that if Mr. Lloyd George wishes to retain the confidence and support of trades unions he must declare against conscription, adding that millions more men will volunteer if necessary, but it will be fatal to introduce Prussian militarism in England. Mrs. Pankhurst, speaking in London, advocated compulsory national service for every man and woman.

LORD CURZON PROTESTS. "DONT (POISON OUR OWN WELLS." ' Received Sept. 21, 11.25 p.m. London, Sept. 21. Writing in the Daily Chronicle, Lord Curzon protests against the suggestion that he prepared an ultimatum to his colleagues. He had been a convinced supporter of universal service for many years, and is a thousand times more so now, when he "believes that we cannot win the war without it, but he scrupulously refrained from making a speech, writing letters, or giving interviews, being content to act in the spirit of loyalty towards the Premier and his colleagues, without which Cabinet Government is impossible. He appeals to the newspapers to discourage attempts to manufacture discord where none exists. There are, he says, several ways of losing the war, but one of the surest is to poison our own wells.

COST OF THE WAR. PREDICTIONS ON THE BUDGET. London, Sept. 20. The Daily Telegraph predicts that the Budget will lower the income-tax exemptions and increase the tax by sixpence, producing fifty millions. There will be a heavy tax on war profits, a tea duty of a shilling a pound, fifty per cent, increase on sugar, tobacco and cigars, and increased telegraphic charges.