Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1904. LABOUR V. PREFERENCE.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 82, 4 October 1904, Page 4

Evening Post. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1904. LABOUR V. PREFERENCE.

Mr. Chamberlain's interchange of messages with the Australian Chamber of Manufacturers on the subject of fiscal preference has been succeeded by a still more interesting correspondence between leading representatives of labour in the two countries. Mr. John Burns, M.P., has telegraphed to Mr. Watson repeating the appeal which was made in the manitesto issued last year on behalf of the workers of the United Kingdom to their fellows in the colonies with regard to Mr. Chamberlain's proposals. "Whatever their application to Australian products," says Mr. Burns, "they undoubtedly mean a rise in the price of foodstuffs foi British workers. I still believe Australasian workers wDI not ask anything imposing this disability upon the Motherland'^ workers. I appeal to them to seriously bear this in mind when considering fiscal proposals of any description." Mr. Richa-rd Bell, M.P., Chairman of the Trades Union Congress, has cabled to Mr. Watson to much the same effect, urging the workers of Australia "to respect the feeling of their British comrades so emphatically expressed at this Congress, where representatives of all sections of British labour unanimously declare against any system of preference." The terms of Mr. Wat-son's formal reply to these two interesting appeals have not yet reached us, but its nature may be inferred from his statement to an interviewer, which was included among Saturday's cables; He declares that "there is no desire on the part of Australian workers that the British people should subject themselves to any disabilities on our behalf. In the Australian view, preferential trade is essential, but it is a matter for the people of Britain to decide whether or not it is. to their interests." This is jusc what might have beeD expected of Mr. Watson's good sense and good feeling, and accords very closely with the view which we have urged from the first. Australia can see very clearly the benefits which she will get from a preference for her produce in the British market, but she is not so selfish as to urge that the British consumer is to be sacrificed in order to give her this benefit. , Mn Watson would therefore take no land in putting pressure upon the Labour Party or upon any otfier party in Great Britain to abandon freetrade for hn, P j?Ti? e ° f , h6lping the c °l°*ies, though, like ourselves, he would be clad to see the British electors adopting freely, and on their view of the benefits it would confer upon themselves, a change which would be obviously beneficial to the colonies. How Great Britain is to increase her imports of food without incresfting the burdens of those least capable of bearing any such increase Mr. Watson does not discuss, and perhaps regards it as beyond his province to discuss; but it is exactly to this point tnat the British Labour representatives desire him to direct his attention. "It has been suggested," he says, "that taxation in Britain might be regulated so that preferential trade would involve no greater sacrifice on the part of the British proletariat than was at present exacted, and if that is so, I cannot see why it should not be adopted." This very guarded utterance will bring small comfort to Mr. John Burns and his men,' for the suggestion referred to was made by the man they most distrust when he first expounded his tariff proposals a year ago, and it has been rejected by every Labour Congress and nearly every constituency which has had the opportunity of pronouncing upon the matter. Are the British Labour leaders to assume that in Mr. Watson's opinion Mr. Chamberlain's contentions on this, the crucical point, are made good? or only that if they are made good, then the scheme is not so bad as represented? Nor does Mr. Watsfsn give any indication as to what he considers Australia's duty to be in the matter. He deems it "advisable to leave no room for misapprehension as to the opmjons of the Australian people, which I emphatically declare are in favour of preferential trade;" but there is still no evidence of the manner in which those views are to find expression, or in Mr. Watson's opinion ought to find expression, for tho oenefit of the Old Country. Is Australia's taste for preference merely a desire to get something, or does it carry with it any sense of reciprocal obligation? The issue between the rival diagnoses of colonial human nature by Mr. Chamberlain and Lord Rosebery is still undecided.