FISCAL ISSUE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 49, 21 November 1907, Page 7

FISCAL ISSUE.

THE EMPIRE.

SPEECH BY LORD MILNER.

UNIONISTS AND LABOUR ALLIES. By telegram—rnEss associatiox —copyright. (Rec. Nov. 20, 10.45 p.m.) London, November 20. Lord Milner, speaking at Rugby, said that' while all wore for toloranco, and vrhilo there woro difforont Unuionist views on fiscal policy, ho was totally opposed to any compromise on principlo. Thero was far less danger in tho democracy being misled en domestic than on foreign or Imperial questions. . .A'mistake in domestic policy was rapidly felt and was remedied, but the electorates were less familiar with interests abroad, and the consequences of a mistake did not recoil so directly and unmistakably.

The Unionists, said Lord Milnor, were not a class, but a national party. Why should thero not bo Unionist Labour, equally with Radical Labour, members of tho House of Commons? FREE TRADE WITHIN THE EMPIRE. MR. DEAKIN'S DISCLAIMER. Melbourne, November 20. The Federal Promier, Mr. Dcakin, in the House, referring to Mr. A. J. Balfour's speech at Birmingham, declared that ho certainly was not prepared to advocate a policy of linporial Free Trade. Ho did not belicvo it would be advantageous to the industrial interests of Australia. There aro "at least three sorts of Imperial customs preference—(l) tho raising of tho tariff against foreigners; (2) the lowering) of the tariff against Grcato Britain, but not as again., t foreigners; (3) Inter-Imperial Free Trade. Mr. Balfour, in his recent speech, said that after what had occurred at the Imperial Conference it would be irrational to fear that Freo Trade within the Empire was not practicable.

If a writer in the "Daily Mail" is correctly informed, Lord Milnor might not be, in tho event of a change of Government, very far removed from the Colonial Secretaryship. "It is no secret," says the writer referred to,' "that when ho cafne homo from South Africa in the autumn of 1903 he was urged by tho Prime Minister to accept tho dignity of Secretary of State for the Colonies; the poi;sonal pressure brought to bear upon him lasted two wholo (lays, and it is recounted that the greatest of his difficulties was to withstand tho charm and insistence of Mr. Balfour's application. But all tho time his sense of public duty overshndowed every thought of personal advancement, and there is no doubt that'by his return to tho troubled scenes in South Africa the Empire gained though tho individual suffered."