MR. BALDWIN EXPLAINS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 125, 23 November 1923, Page 7

MR. BALDWIN EXPLAINS

KEEP HOME FIRES BURNING

DOMINIONS' OFFER NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

(UNITED mil ASIOCIATIOK.—tOPTUCIII.)

(AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABIB ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 21st November.

Mr. Baldwin, at Reading, was greeted by a crowded meeting, singing: "Keep the Home Fires Burning." Replying to Sir. Asquith's charge that the election was being rushed, he said Mr. Asquith had evidently forgotten 1910, whan he only gave the electors three weeks to decide a most important matter.

In an illuminating passage Mr. Baldwin explained the reasons the Government had decided not to t&5 essential articles of food. Firstly, he said, the. Muntry, under Free Trade, having become an industrial country, was unable to feed its own people, and.bo prices of food might rise. Secondly, said Mr. Baldwin, there had come from the Dominions no offer of preference which would involve the ira?oaition of a food tariff in this country, f an extremely advantageous offer were made in regard to British manufacturers, and if the offer were a reasonably good pne with regard to the British export trade, it might be possible to lay it before the country, but at present there wae nothing of the kind to justify the Government taxing food supplies.