IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 271, 21 May 1907, Page 4

IMPERIAL CONFERENCE.

. ♦ ttt BXBOTBIO TKLBOBAPH — GOPTBIGHT [PBB PBBSS ASSOCIATION.] London, May 20. Dr. Jamieson in an interview at Southampton, on the eve of his departure, declared that he was disappointed with the result of the Imperial Conference, but certain principles had been affirmed and definite steps taken which would bear fruit in the future. . Mr Smartt, interviewed, complained of the timidity of the Imperial Government in refusing Io examine and dispassionately consider the vital question of fiscal reform. Even with a mandate against preference Government might have reduced the duties on tobacco and sugar in the interests of the Empire. Sir Joseph Ward, interviewed by Router at Brindisi, said it would be idle to say that before coming to the Conference he believed that a resolui tion favourable to preference would be carried, because he understood the j Imperial Government's declared pol- : icy was in favour of f reetrade. Though personally he believed that the question of protection or freetrade ought not to be allowed to enter into the i question of preferential trade, yet I if preference is regarded as a protectionist policy it would have been paradoxical to have found the party opposed to protection and preference supporting it at the Conference. He emphasised that the Conference had proved nowise abortive, but on tho contrary much valuable information was recorded at what, after all, must be remembered as the first practical business conference held, and itshould yield practical results in the future. Ihe Daily News, dealing with Mr Churchill's speech, says the door was btnged, not upon the colonies, but t'pnn piotection. The Daily Chronicle declares that . the door was slammed, not against the colonies whose interests are dear to us, whose loyalty we appreciate, and in whose virility we rejoice, but against a cruel and mischievous policy.