AN INEVITABLE REFORM,

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 122, 24 May 1909, Page 5

AN INEVITABLE REFORM,

BALFOUR ON PREFERENCE. ORGANISING THE EMPIRE. LONDON, May 22. Mr. A. J. Balfour, addressing the Women's Unionist and Tariff Reform Association at St. James' Theatre last night, declared that there was a universal impression among all classes in all parts of the country that tariff reform had got to come and was coming. It was. he snid. impossible to continue piling direct taxation on small sections of the community and heaping direct taxation on articles of general consumption. If thus inevitably driven to some kind of general tariff, it would be folly not to use it in safeguarding our trade and uniting more closely the colonies. '•The present system," Mr. Balfour continued, "cannot be maintained, and if abandoned it must be in the direction of a system enabling us to do what ihe colonies ask." The necessity of sympathy of imagination in regard to Imperial finance and Imperial policy was urged by Mr. Balfour, who emphasised the vital necessity imposed on the Empire by the forces slowly but surely shaping themselves in various parts of the world, to organise itself in the consciousness of common needs and destinies and perils. The Motherland must show the colonies that sympathy in their aims and methods which went beyond the mere production of a certain number of ships, guns, and units. Concluding, he said, "The colonies demonstrate a desire for the fiscal union J of the Empire. Are we, when driven to , adopt a system lending itself to preference, going to refuse the preference within our reach. It would be national madness to pursue such a policy, and I do not believe the country will pursue