LIBERALS AND THE EMPIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 254, 24 October 1905, Page 5

LIBERALS AND THE EMPIRE.

SPEECH BT LORD ROSEBERY.

REPLIES TO MR. WISE.

LONDON, October 23,

Lord Rosebery, speaking at Edinburgh on Saturday, controverted Mr. B. R. Wise's recent speech at Edinburgh, and lescribed him as having, "aired the flyblown" fallacies of protection." He 'asked whether it was consistent with Mr Wise's dignity, as an ex-Minister of tbe Crown, !.o come 13,000 miles to stigmatise one of the great political parties as having no policy but one of stagnation and drift, and as being wholly out of sympathy with Imperial ideas, and ignorant of the Imperial aspirations of the colonies. Lord Rosebery added: "I am inclined to think that when our old friend, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, returns from his well-earned holiday, to take command of the Liberal fortress, tbe last epithet applicable to the party will be that it is stagnant." LoTd Rosebery proceeded to challenge Mr. Wise to prove by a plebiscite in hiß State that the colonies are, as he says, in enthusiastic sympathy with the Tory party. On one side will be the Liberal party, with freedom of trade and freedom of Empire, and the Tory party on the other side, with Chinese labour. If the Australians responded, as Mr. Wise anticipated, "we shall know that they put their strength into the war, and fought so efficiently in South Africa, not to restore to Great Britain her paramount interests, but to introduce into South Africa Chinese labour, not one iota whereof would be allowed to enter their own precincts." He hoped the Liberal party, when it resumed power, would earnestly'strive to do more than it heretofore had done to win the confidence of tbe outer Britains of the Empire. He added: "Tne Empire has been built up only of Liberalism."