A DISCREDITED STATESMAN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7947, 24 January 1906, Page 3

A DISCREDITED STATESMAN.

A writer in a recent nam bar of tbe "British Australas an" attempts • to probe the- mystery of the postponement of the Colonial Conference of 1906. No adequate exnlanation baa been forthcoming from the late JBritiub Government, npd Mr Liyttelton's statement that the Government was "doubtful whether it would be practicable to ' make pufficient pre- ' paration before the SDring of 1906 of the °nbjeots to br> discussed at the v conference" ia singularly lame. Tbe "British Australasian" makes short work of this flimsy plea. . "We are ungenerous enough," says the journal, "to believe that there has been Borne sinister influence at work in the Balfour Cabinet concerning the Colonial Conference whioh should meet in London next year. We are even ungenerous enough to believe that the influence can be traced to Mr Balfour himself. We cannot believe that Mr Lyttelfon would, of his own accord, proceed to strangle next year's conference as he did by his cabled despatch to tbe colonial Premiers last week." After tracing the events and correspondence leading up to the present situation, the' I journal states its conclusion in out- | spoken terms, "The fact is," it says, "that Mi Balfour has never . been a supporter of tbe preferential policy, and that he never favoured the meeting of tbe conference which he knew would pledge itself to that policy. He began by refusing to summon tbe conference. When he found that tbe conference should meet automatically, he dilly-dallied over the issue of the necessary summonses, apparently in the hope that some obstacle would present itself at tbe last- moment Then came Mr Chamberlain's bombshell speech at Bristpl on November 22; then Mr Lyttelton's cabled despatch on November 29 postponing the conference, then the disruption of the Cabinet over Mr Chamberlain's speech; and finally, the Premier's determination to resign less than a week afterwards. But, before resigning be took care that the conference of colonial Premiers, for which Mr Chamberlain has i been pleading for more than two' years, should not meet at its appointed time—if ever." Mr Balfour has never expressed any definite opinion of bis own in regard to preferential trade, and there seems a good deal in the suggestion of the "British Australasian" that he has no definite opinion to express.