POLITICAL POINTS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 122, 21 November 1908, Page 12

POLITICAL POINTS.

PROTECTION VERSUS PUBL'IQ POLICY. "Why is it," the Westminster Gazette asks, "that the drink trade above all others should have this power of controlling parties and diverting politics from their normal course? The answer is simple, but it is highly important, in the present state of politics, that we should understand its full meaning. The drink trade is the one trade which must be regulated by Government, and which, therefore, stands to gain or lose by legislation and public finance. Unfortunately, we cannot help ourselves in regard to the drink traffic; Every c'vilised State must keep that under control, if only in the interests of public order. But the policy which is called Tariff Reform would .put ue in the same position and expose us to the same consequences in regard to all the more powerful interests in the country. If we were foolish enough to consent to this, we should find that almost every argument which the grower now uses against the Licensing Bill could be used with equal force against any alteration in a Tariff which a particular trade thought favourable to. itself. We 6hould, of course, protest that there was no vested interest in a Tariff, that it was, like the license on the Sharpe v. Wakefield theory, an annual enactment which might be altered or repealed at the will of Parliament. But the trade affected would reply by its campaign fund, jts pressure on members and candidates, its appeals to local interests and prejudices. At a general election tho issue before the country would not be whether this> or that party carried on the government with credit, or could be trusted to go forward with social reform, but whether the woollen tra"de, 'the glass-bottle trade, the cutlery trade, or the steel and iron trade would get what it thought ii ought to get out of the party in power. We do not believe that when they reflect on the possible consequences, serious people in this country will permit themselves to contemplate a state of politics in which all trades will have the same incentive to organise and agitate as 'the - Trade." The Gazette's argument would find .ample confirmation in any of the debates on proposed tariff changes in the protectionist Australasian colonies, where the subject, once opened up, gives rise to almost endless discussion and to pressure on the Administration from conflicting trade interests of every description. The Saturday Review reminds its readers that the success of Home Rule in Croatia was a pet topic, with Mr. Gladstone, and it suggests that if Englishmen and Irishmen would now visit Agram they would learn two invaluable lessons : "They will see," it says, "that the Home Rule enjoyed by Croatia has ever been a source of friction between her and Hungary, and that under the present coalition, which embodies all the aspirations of patriotic Magyars, the nationalities are becoming more and more discontented every day. In fact, it would be impossible to offer Ireland a worse example of the evils of autonomy than Hungary affords. The cult of nationality must arouse subordinate nationalities to a sense of their existence. It is not often that political analogieß have an opportunity of proving their value before they nave been imitated. But here is an exception. Home Rule in Ireland could only end as it is ending in Croatia, and as it has ended in Scandinavia — unless we decided to put an English army into the country and reconquer it." The Spectator thinks the political lesson of the Newcastle' election is that the E resent Government has lost the condence of the country, and if there was a general election to-morrow would lose its majority at the polls. Why (it asks) have the Government lost the confidence of the country ? Our answer is that they have lost it, and deserved to lose it, , because they have in fact, if not in name, betrayed the cause of Freetrade— the cause which they were placed in power to further and to safeguard. Liberal members wero sent in unprecedented ni mbers to Westminster, not because the majority of the electors had suddenly j become Liberal partisans, but simply anil solely because the country did nob wish to change its Fiscal policy, and because an the moment the only method available for preventing the dreaded change was to place a Liberal Government in power. The country at the general election thought of Freetrade, and Freetrade only, and assumed that it could trust the Liberals not to use a victory ob.tained by the transfer of thou o and& of Unionist votes to the Liberal side to carry out a mere party programme. Unfortunately the confidence thus felt by the electors has not been justified. The Liberal Government have used a national victory for purely sectional ends. They have passed measures, and threaten further measures, which, by destroying the financial equilibrium of the country, must inevitably ruin the cause of Freetrade. The American Protectionists iound twenty years ago that the best way of maintaining their tariff was to empty the Treasury by lavish expenditure upon pensions. The pre-ss-it Government have insisted upon laying the 1 foundation of a tariff by similar rae.tb.ods. In view of the prevaitng pessimism over the depression of trade, the difficulties of finance, the horrors of the approaching Budgets (says the Westminster Gazette), it is well that a Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer should remind us of the other side of the picture — of the great wealth of the country, its rapid accumulations in recent years, and the abundance of the resources which might be brought to bear on its national problems. The Government are approaching what is, in some reopects, the greatest of its tasks — namely, the reform of the Poor Law, which means the classification and separate treatment ot the various problems, from infancy to old age, which in the aggregate make up the problem of unemployment. The Government, as we may gather from Mr. George's speech, do not profess to have madp more (lian a beginning of that problem, but they have in their minds a variety of practical schemes for dealing with the poverty question in its various aspects. All these remain necessarily in the vague until the Pooj Law Commission has presented its report, but that, we hope, will not be long delayed after the meeting of Parliament 101 the autumn Session. Then it will be the business of Ministers to get to work in earnest on the measure or group of measures which are to follow. In the meantime various Ministers are endeavouring to help in the work of relieving the distress which is threatened during the coming winter. "Not long ago," writes a correspondent to Public Opinion, "several Egyptian 'patriots,' athirst for independence, went on a mission to Constantinople to ask the Young Turkish Party to help them to gain their liberty What, was the answer ? 'Liberty ! Why, you have had it for over twenty years ; don't you know that? And Lord Cromer's patient work in lifting your country out of the mire has long been our admiration, and is now our guide in setting our own house in order. Also, we are going to ask the English engineers to help us as they have helped you, and we prize, and mean to keep, England's friendship.' What a woeful shock it must have been to the 'patriot band' to find that all the Young Turks wer© 'Cromerians,' and what a wonderful word that ia that ham been coined in Cairo I"