THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 1909. BRITISH FISCAL REFORM.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3139, 17 March 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 1909. BRITISH FISCAL REFORM.

The leaders of the rival political parties in the Imperial Parliament are carefully and cautiously manoeuvring in order to secure tne presentation of their strongest plank as the foremost issue in the approaching general election. Mr Asquith is not quite certain whether the education or the licensing question or a quarrel with the House of Lords over special taxation proposals would appeal most strongly for popular support, but Mr Balfour and the Conservative Unionist chieftains have evidently not the slightest doubt thaUtariff reform is the strongest plank they can secure for a political platform, and that i its strength will cover the weakness of their position upon other propositions. It might have been imagined," from the indignation with which the Free Trade champions greeted,the first agitation for. Protection, Preference and Reciprority/and from the dogmatic connden e with which they still assert that the open ports of the Mother Country ace tfie secret of her greatness and prosperity, that the Government would welcome a contest upon the fiscal i3sue, and.would be ready to set all confusing questions in the background. But we have a most remarkable indication of the complete transformation of British popular opinion upon fiscal matters in the transpar- 4 ent determination of the Liberal leaders to prevent, if possible, the. fiscal issue from occupying the centre of the political arena. They will fight upon the questions of State aid to denominational schools, of gradual closure of licensed houses, of confiscatory taxation of '.vealth, of the relative legislative authority of Lords and Commons, upon anything and everything rather than the fiscal issue. Yet they are committed to a defence of the existing fiscal system by so many protestations and declarations that it is quite impossible for them to admit the desirability of fiscal reforms. Mr Winston Churchill is already "hedging" in 'the direction of "retaliation," power for which he has asserted to be necessary in th« making of an equitable international bargain. This, of course, is meeting the Fiscal Reformers somewhat more than halfway, for the British fiscal reformer is quite eager to admit that if all the world became Free Trade it would be an ideal policy. The Liberal p'arty newspapers have therefore bitterly condemned Mr Winston Churchill, but his utterances may safely betaken as a straw which shows how the wind of popular opinion is blowing.