Rosebery Addresses A Great Liberal Meeting.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 1278, 27 November 1903, Page 5

Rosebery Addresses A Great Liberal Meeting.

Beceived November 27, 0.30 a.m. LONDON, November 26. The Earl of Rosebery addressed a great Liberal demonstration in the Surrey Theatre. He said the postponement of the dissolution with such an issue in the air was' impracticable and impossible. He declined to believe that the country would change the fiscal policy on a personal pledge of any statesman. Mr Chamberlain would have done well to try arid curtail the enormous growth of expenditure. Mr Chamberlain was a Jeremiah. He discovered a decrease which did not exist, and promised higher wages under Protection in the t€<eth of the;fact that in every protected country in Europe wages were lower and hours longer than in Britain. A state of Socialism was the logical outcome of Mr Chamberlain's scheme. Would the Americans, tJie most pugnacious people in the world, take re-' taliation lying down? The first result of the new proposals would be bitter warfare wit<h our cousins, :n which we stood to lose everything and gain nothing. Britain's greatness and prosperity Avas due to the fact that the world was her granary. A free empire must continue to be idtmtfied with a free loaf. 'Do not allow the sublime idea of Empire to be mixed with the taxation of your children's bread." He concluded by outlining what he described as an unheroic and practical policy for the stimulation of education, .temperance and thrift, cotton-growing within the Empire^ the removal of a real and tangible grievance*—namely, the greater facilities given to foreign ships whic 1 Avere not subject to the same regulations as ours,—the development of tha poit of London, and promotion of a commercial policy, especially in the Far East.