NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1034, 25 January 1911, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY.

The English mail that arrived this' week brought us the newspapers, for the week ending December 16. On that day'. 609-of the 670 seats in the House of Commons had been filled, and the details of the votes cast were given by the Morning Post. Tho votes east in contested elections included: Unionist, 2,179,852; Liberal, 2,041,041; Labour and Socialist, 355,170. The votes cast in January of last year in respect of the seats uncontested last month wore: Unionist, 508,324; Liberal, 418,282; Labour and Socialist, 42,438. The voting forces of the parties was, ', therefore,. as ..follows : Unionist, 2,688,176; Liberal, 2,459,323; Labour • and Socialist, 397,608. The combined Liberal and Labour vote thus amounted t0'2,856,931. Of tho 609 members,'2s7 were Unionists, 240 Liberals, and 39 Labourites. This is pretty .fairly in proportion to the votes cast. The Redmondite votes cast, however, numbered 58,842, and these were represented by no fewer than 66 members. If the ratio of members to voters had been the same in . the case of the Ridmondites as in the case of the •. Unionists, there would have been only six. Tho Redmondites, that is to say, had at that stage eleven times as many seats as, under' equal representation, they would have been entitled to. The O'Bricnite votes numbered 25,196, and these secured only 7 seats. The Redmondite vote' was thus only a little, more' than ■ twice as great as the O'Brienite vote, and yet tho Redmondites secured nine times as inanj* seats as the O'Brienit.es. It is clear that in ,the interests of free and independent Nationalists,' no less than in the-interests of English voters, a drastic reform of the present methods of representation is urgently necessary. -

Advocates of tariff reform in this country do not'' always realise that there are right and wrong ways of giving preference to the Mother Country. The right way, speaking broadly, has.lately been formulated as a policy by a large number—possibly a great majority—of the farmers of Western Canada. About 500 of. them went to Ottawa about the middle of last month, as a delegation, to lay their wishes before Sin Wilfrid Laurier. The circumstance was briefly reported by cablegram, but wo now 'liavo by mail fuller particulars of the case which they intended to submit to the Canadian Premier, though not, as yet, of his apparently rather noncommittal roply. In the first placo the farmers asked that tho preference to Britain be'immediately increased by 50 per cent, all round, and that further increases be mado annually, so that complete Freetrade between the Dominion and the Mother Country' would - be obtained within ten years. Increase of preference obviously meant (Free-trade being the goal) .a reduction of the duties now payable on imports from Britain. They did not look for any reciprocity on Britain's part. It was enough, they thought, that she already opened her markets.freely to the products of ■ the world. Some members of the deputation, speaking at a banquet at Winnipeg, went eo far as to condemn strongly any attempt to increase the burdens of the British poor by exacting from them a tax on breadstuffs. Nevertheless the spokesmen of this farmers' Frec•trade" movement made no sccret of the fact that it was prompted by their own Their demand for reciprocity with the United States in natural products and Freetrade in agricultural inujlements,,

and their proposal that any reciprocal advantages given to the United States should'also be given to Great Britain are not so much to our poin't. What wo wish-to cmphasiic as a lesson for this country is the contrast between the Western Canadian idea of preference and that which is embodied in the tariff of this country. Our giving of preference consisted of increasing certain imposts on foreign goods without reducing those on the corresponding British products. The Canadian farmer, on the other hand, wishes to reduco the duties on imports from Britain. Whether our preferential tariff has really helped British trade at all, and whether it has kept away any foreign goods are questions on which investigators differ. All that can be said with certainty is that the increased duties have to be paid by the people of New Zealand. The Canadian farmers' plan, on the other hand, would bring with. it, at all events, the benefit of cheaper commodities for the. whole population, and it would be of real service to inter-Imperial trade. Now Zealand might very well take the hint.