PREFERENTIAL TRADE.

Evening Star, Issue 12069, 15 December 1903, Page 6

PREFERENTIAL TRADE.

Presa Association—By Telegraph—Copyright,

LORD ROSEBERTS ADVICE

AN EXPONENT OF DO-NOTHING.

REFUSES TO DO ANYTHING,

LONDON December 14. Lord Rosebery, addressing two meetings at Edinburgh, numbering 8,000 persons, including many members of Parliament, said that Mr Balfour's Army Reform Bill was full of breezy trivialities, suggesting a Christmas extravaganza. .Mr Balfour sent Mr Chamberlain to beat the woods for game, and meanwhile the Cabinet supped on Protection and water until it was able to dispense with the water. It was evident that the Ministers who had resigned believed that the Government's real policy wae not Retaliation, but Protection and -Preferential Tariffs. Mr Balfour's tactics were not straightforward. Lord Rosebery warned agriculturists that the Government were leading them into a quagmire of disappointment. A2s duty on wheat was inadequate to 'benefit the British farmer. It, would only stimulate an illimitable area of competition in Canada and elsewhere. The time would arrive when the United States would be unable to export wheat. Then would be Canada and Australia's opportunity to develop their virgin soils and become the .great supplying sources of the Empire. A bounty on Canadian wheat would increase the depopulation of rural England by attracting agricultural laborers to. Canada. In the event of war it would be safest for Britain to have a world-wide wheat supplv. The alleged Preferential offers from the cole/hies were a delusion not founded on a substratum of fact. Colonial evidence showed that it was not true that the Empire could only be kept together by Preferential Tariffs. "Never before," he said, "was it so strong, united, and prosperous. Why arrest and disturb the baneficent development? We were not a srreat military Empire, like Germany or Russia, but a great defensive league of communities under the great headship of the Crown. Each unit including the heart of the Empire, must develop its own conditions in its own wav." He appealed to the nation not to stake the future of a stately companv of commonwealths on the hazard of the die. Mr Chamberlain's policy was experimental, empirical, untried, and unsolicited. Lord Rosebery added: "I refuse to strike possibly a fatal blow at the majestic structure of British commerce or Empire." The meeting resolved in favor of' Freetrade against Preference and Retaliation.

WHAT EMPIRE REALLY MEANS.

SYDNEY. December 14. The Attorney-General (Mr Wire) has received a letter from Mr Chamberlain wherein, the latter says: -The chancre to Preferential trade will" be carried, if at all, by mixed considerations of sentiment and interest. As to the former, I hope it is strong with you, and that there it? some appreciation of what Empire really mean? as contrasted with the parochial 'life and small ambitions of little States. If the Empire breaks tip into atoms, each will be comparatively insignificant, powerless, and uninteresting. If the component States hold together they wffi be the most powerful civilising influence in the world.,"

THE MOST-FAVORED-NATION

TREATMENT.

"AX IMPUDENT ATTACK."

BERLIN. December 14. In the Reichstag the Government proposals for extending the most-favored-nation treatment to Britain for a period of two years wag introduced, and the Bill authorising the same read a second time. Count RevenTtow fiercely attached Great Britain, declaring that she constantly broke treaties. He accused Australia and India of differentiation against German s-ugar. Several deputies and newspapers denivrate the impudent nUack. which, they declare, will onlv bring grist to Mr Chamber!;. inV mill.

THE COTTON TNDUSTRY. LONDON December 14. (Received December 15. at. 9.9 a.m.) The British Cotton-growing Association have engaged Professor KMmson. of the Mis-w-vippi Agriculture! College 'U.S.A.). to proceed to West Africa to teach the'natives cotton-growing an ,i improvement of the staple.

BERLIN. December 14. rhe i\aiser referred to (he importance of cotton-growing in the German colonic wh'vn receiving the Reich-tag's office-bearers vesterdav.

A WOMEN'S LEAOUF,

STRONG FOP UNION.

TENDON December 14 (Received December 15. at 9.9 a.m.)

A women's branch of the Tariff Reform League has been formed. Us expre-t-ed objects are to emphasise the bonds between the Motherland ard the colonies, and the importance of developing the home trade.