INDIA AND THE EMPIRE.

Bush Advocate, Volume XX, Issue 1000, 11 April 1908, Page 5

INDIA AND THE EMPIRE.

» SPEECH BY LORD CURZON. Press Assn — By telegraph — Copyright. LONDON, yesterday. . Lord Curaon, presiding at a Unionist mass meeting at Basingstoke, said that the occasion marked a decade since he had addressed any political gathering in England. Mr Balfour's fiscal platform was one on which all sections of the party could well unite and on which ultimate reunion, liesides being possible, was certain. He did not envy either the commonsenso or the political foresight of the man who declared that- no change in fiscal policy was required ov likoly to oe- ; cur. Change of some sort was necessary and inevitable. It would possibly not. take precisely the shape the authors of the movement 'anticipated, and perhaps would not : ; fulfil all the ambitious desires of its warmest partisans. He disclaimed ■sufficient knowledge to enable him to: dogmatise on the subject. (Received this day, 8.8. a.m.) -. . ... . LONDON, yesterday. Lord Curzon, at his Basirigstoko meeting, added : Regarding India, which might conceivably suffer more from retaliation than she could gain from preference, it was to our. interest that her interests should not be sacrificed in any coming change. Her revenue tariff was so useful and lucrative that no party in India would consent to part with so useful a means of negotiation, as it had been used more than once to threaten reprisals on foreign nations. The Liberal Government had events in train to disturb many things, but they had not shown any tendency to upset the tariff in India. Such a tariff .must and ought to come in England. .- The Liberal party.; were | acting as wet 'nurses to an o&sprhig ) whom they affected to repudiate and I disown. If we got such a tariff for revenue purposes,' I cannot for the life of me see why we could not get a tariff, after consultation with the colonial governments, for strengthening the ties of Imperial connection, which could also be utilised to improve trade and secure the better employment of workers. The money question was probed more by those sections of the party, which at present supported tariff reform, but were mutually separate, and would be drawn together. Whatever we do, let us not adopt proscription. We are unable *to afford to estrange such men as Lord Salisbury's two sons. That would be .unthinkable. Our policy should be one of reconciliation, not reprisals.