MR DEAKIN.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 289, 12 June 1907, Page 2

MR DEAKIN.

[BY ELKCIBIC TKLEGRAPH— COPTAIOm.I It** PBESB ASBCOIATION.j (Received June 12th, 9.64 a.m.) rru rii . Sydney. June 12. ■I he following interview with Mr Deakin in England h«s been telegraphed from Fremantle. Dealing with the attitude of the Imperial uovernment, Mr Deakin says:— "l think Ministers acted Consistently, They absolutely refused any and* every kind of fiscal preference, either on their existing traiff, or by any modification of it. In that direction, there was no thoroughfare, but they suggested that, in regard ! to modes ok preference other than fiscal, they had an open mind, They were united in propositions of any character, although they refrained rrom making any themselves; yet, when I submitted a general - suggstion ? for the purpose of providing a basis which might lead to some definite arrangement, it was attacked in a most contentious Bpirit, and dealt with in its details in spite of my repeated protest at the time that details were matters of indeffererice, and that the Ministers were evading the real purpose of the proposal! What I sought was practical action, and a resolution was necessary to allow such action to be taken. The outcome was that I offered, but they declined, a general and indefinite resolution in favor of some such action being taken hereafter at some indefinite time. Mr Deakin instanced the case of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's mail service proposal, which met, he said, certainly with less aggressiveness, but with almost equally deter* bined opposition. Sir Wilfrid Laurier was obliged to consent to his motion being whittled down before he could get its acceptance. There was mtle prospect now of Sir Joseph Ward's desire for a rapid Pacific service receiying anything like adequate support from the .British Government. The total practical result of the endeavours to ascertain the form of co-operation other than in fiscal preference, to which the Imperial Goverjnment was willing to agree,-, was nil. It would have, Keen more consistent if the Ministers, with their mandate against preference, had given their decision at the outset of the Conference. We were met, in effect, at the close of the' argument with a plain non possumus, quite irrespective of the merits of the discussion, or, in fact, if any discussion we could have 'maintained. Except, therefore, as a dialectic extra for Ministers, the whole debate, so far as they were concerned, was rendered meaningless. It had all been decided beforehand — decided for them as much as by them. While, therefore, they were perfectly consistent in refusing to accept our proposals, they were quite inconsistent when they encouraged us to pursue the argument at great length, without a prospect of the arguments leading to anything, ■* . . *