PREFERENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8446, 21 May 1907, Page 5

PREFERENCE.

"THE BANGED DOOR."

Received May 20, 8.32 a.m. LONDON, May 19

Mr Winston Churchill, Under-Sec-retary for the Colonies, addressing three thousand people, under the auspices of the Scottish Liberal Association, said the demand for preference made at the Imperial Conference had been repealed daily with strident clamour by the Tories and the pothouse press supporting them. They said the Government had "banged the door." Yes, they had banged, barred, and bolted the door upon Imperial taxation of food, and the largest Liberal-Radical-Labour majority ever seen had set their backs firmly against it. The Liberals would stand like a rock between the working masses and those whu were squeezing some shameful little profit out of the scanty pittance of the weak poor. Mr Churchill added: "Of some of the speeches of our colonial guests I say nothing, except that they are guests of the Government, and the laws of hospitality impose obligations not only on the hosts, but on the guests. A mischief-making and eavesdropping press has done its best to create ill-feeling between the Premiers and the Government, but the forces making for the unity of the Empire are strong enough to make j their exertions vain." Received May 20, 10.41 p.m. LONDON, May 20. The Daily News, dealing with Mr Winston Churchill's speech, says that the door was banged not upon the colonies but upon Protection. The Daily Chronicle declares "that the door was slammed not against the colonies, whose interests are clear to us, whose loyalty we appreciate and in whose virility we rejoice, but against a cruel and mischievous policy."