THE DEMAND FOR PREFERENCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 May 1907, Page 3

THE DEMAND FOR PREFERENCE

MR CHURCHILL'S RECKLESS SPEECH CONDEMNED.

[tfx Telegraph—T-iiebs Association.]

(Received this day at 10.23 a.m.) LONDON, May 20. The Times says that Mr Asquith assured us that the Conference had not strained the friendly feelings between the Home Government and the representatives of the self-governing States in the least degree. Mr Churchill's speech is, however, an uncompromising denial of Mr Asquith's optimism. How Imperial unity, or even the most ordinary good feeling, can be promoted by Churchill's reckless language we cannot imagine. Preference, after all, is a colonial policy and has been reaffirmed in our midst by colonial statesmen. Yet he glories in ;he fact that the Government has ''banged the door" on preference. The Times adds that another strange lapse from statesmanship and good manners was Churchill's lofty rebuke implying that the Premiers had sinned against the laws of hospitality. The Premiers did not come to be muzzled. Our knowledge of their Conference speeches on preference is restricted to only the meagre precis supplied to the press. To contend that the Premiers should thereafter be silenced because they might offend the Ministers' amour propre surely is folly. It is only going a step beyond this to declare that the Premiers had no business to ask us to modify our fiscal policy at all —a view, apparently, seriously held in some quarters. The Premiers appreciate the situation and believe that the educative effect of the Conference will be most important in its results.