LORD HOSEBERY

Waikato Argus, Volume XI, Issue 1127, 18 December 1901, Page 2

LORD HOSEBERY

CABLEGRAMS.

[l’l'R UNITE!) PHI 8S ASSOCIATION] [liV KUSCTHIC TiiLEURAI’H—COPYRIGHT]

SPEECH ON PARTY UNITY. ADVICE TO THE LIBERAL PARTY-. IMPERIAL SENTIMENT NECESSARY. (Received December 18, S,. r )2 a.m.) London, December 17. Lord Rosebery addressed a gathering of 5000 people at Chesterfield, including prominent ex-Cabinet Ministers. lie disclaimed any idea of solving the questio.u of party unity, but intended to speak his mind and offer dispassionate advice to the Liberal Parly. It should free itself from the Irish alliance, and ought: to inscribe on a clean slate that the policy of 1902 was not the ) obey of 1802 and especially that the party did not disassociate itself from the new sentiment of the Empire, which sentiment was not aggressive. Any statesman, however eminent, disassociating himself from that sentiment must not be surprised if the nation disassociates itself from him. He emphasised the views ho expressed in July that the watchword of the nation ought to be efficiency. Tie severely criticised the Government and repelled the theory that there was not an alternative Government. A dissolution ought to bo decreed after peace was secured. He denounced prating about British war methods and barbarism and vindicated the army. He condemned the Boer atrocities, upheld the proclamation of martial law, and the stern and efficient prosecution of the war to be followed by a passive policy. When peace was declared, and we could listen to overtures emanating from Mr Kruger the exiled Boer Government. The Boers were aware that their independence was gone. They wero|too shrewd to base hopes on the crazy foundation of the utterances of a handful of people in Britain. He was dead against the recall of Sir A. Milner. He favoured an amnesty, compatible with safety also a commission for a rough and ready administration of the Indian type. To help lord Milner he would lavishly restock the farms and grant immediate civil rights,to Boers taking a drastic oath of alleghmce but not the immediate grant to the new States of representative Government. He deeffired his policy was not on party lines. He would be at the disposal of the country, and appealed to the tribunal of public opinion and common sense.