THE Wairarapa Age. MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1910. THE BRITISH ELECTIONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9681, 4 January 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age. MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1910. THE BRITISH ELECTIONS.

With hi's usual clearness of vision and lucidity of language, Mr Joseph Chamberlain, in a manifesto, addressed to his constituents, but evidently intended for the people of 1 Great. Britain, sets forth the issues that the electors are now called upon to decide. They have it in their power to declare for equality of taxation according to means, accompanied by an arrangement of the fiscal system by which some contribution will be wrung from the foreigner, whose godds are now allowed to pour into tha United Kingdom free of duty; they have it in their power to declare national defences shall be maintained on a scale commensurate with the greatness of the Empire and adequate to secure its safety; they have it in 1 their power to declare whether the integrity of the United Kingdom shall remain inviolate, and whether they shall be governed by one Chamber or by two. There is probably no man living who can predict with absolute certainty what the verdict of the people of Great Britain will be. New ideas of social, physical and material equality have arisen. A disturbing spirit is abroad. We are living in'an age of rapid changes. It may be that the masses have drifted so far from their old mooring? that they see nothing wild or revolutionary in the proposals of the Asquith-cum-Lloyd George-cum-Churchill Administration—that they are ripe and ready for socialistic innovations, for the abolition of the House of Lords, for the re-establishment of an Irish Parliament. But we would rather believe that the great majority are still inspired by the feelings and traditions that have helped to make Great Britain what it is, and that those sublime instincts which have guided them aright in the past when face to face with grave national dangers will not be tound wanting in te present crisis.