THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1907. MR J. CHAMBERLAIN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8458, 7 June 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE 7, 1907. MR J. CHAMBERLAIN.

The hopes entertained for then complete recoveiy of Mr Chamberlain will be dispersed by the cabled report of the weakened m which he has returned to London. The winter spent in the genial climate of the South of France has not fully restored him to health, and this, with the advanced age of the great statesman, must be regretfully taken as indication that he may never again be able to lead the Tariff Reformers in a political campaign. His ex hausting labours at. the last British elections, when night after night he addressed great audiences at different and distant centres evidently sapped the strength of one of the most strenuous of modern statesmen. From retirement he may still influence the councils of the Tariff Reformers, but we must take it for granted that his fighting days are over. In admitting this, the millions of colonials who recognise his ceaseless efforts on behalf of Imperial unity will unite in a grateful tribute of appreciation. In a long and active life, passed in a period of extraordi ary transition, he has kept in the forefront of political movements as few, indeed, have done before him. Without agreeing with or endorsing all his views and contentions, colonial public opinion had unquestionably accepted him as the one great English politician whose sympathies have been as wide as the English race. While he was in the Colonial Oflice he gave the colonies a confidence before unknown in the possioility of harmonious co-operation between Britain and Greater Britain; and since his resignation of oflice he hat; fough for an ideal in which every loyal colony has been heartily at his side. It is not practical to lament the loss to the Imperial reciprocity movement which is entailed by the withdrawal of his masterful personality from active politics. We should rather rejoice that he was able to place the movement on a sound basis, and to bring the preferential question from comparative obscurity into the arena of pressing political problems. This will be the unanimous colonial view, whether his remaining

diys be few or many; and as for the United Kingdom, the fiscal theories he enunciated are those which are certain to prevail. For the times are with them, though the man who gave them concrete form may not live to see their triumph.