IMPERIAL POLITICS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 29 January 1912, Page 5

IMPERIAL POLITICS.

• * ■ . SPEECH BY MR BONAR LAW. DENUNCIATION OF THE GOVERNMENT. ... BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. LONDON, Jan, 27. Mr Bonar Law, leader of the Unionist party, addressed a packed and enthusiastic meeting in the Albert Hall. He said the Government could not keep going at the present pace. The result would be either destruction of the Government or the ruin, of the country. The Cabinet played Faust to Mr Redmond's Mephistopheles, who now called upon it to redeem its bond: Disestablishment was an act of destructive violence. It appeared the Unionist freetrader must choose between tariff reform and Lloyd-Georgism. The country had had enough of the present Government. The lane had been long, but the turning was visible.

Failure and incompetence, said Mr Bonar Law, marked .every step of the wild men who control the Radical party. The people trusted Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman,- but they did not trust the present Premier, who was being driven, without resistance, faster down the slope. There was never a whisper of competent criticism on the Government benches. Critics were promptly collared and made peers or knights or front benchmen. Wales had thirty members, and eighteen had been iionored with gifts ranging from a peerage to a job. The Labor party had lost its influence because it was in the Government's pocket.

On the other side, continued Mr Law, the Government had sold the constitution, and found themselves in the Nationalists' pocket.. There had been tremendous transformations without any explanation. Before Christmas Mr Winston Churchill had had enough of Stepney scenes, and gentle shepherds, and had gone to the Admiralty. Mr.McKenna had had enough of Archer Shee and Lord JCharles Beresford. Both desired to begin a new leaf.

Lord Haldane's method of strengthening the regulars, said the' speaker, was by a reduction of 20,000 me<n. He had similarly reduced the auxiliaries ,by 30,000. All the troops were armed with weapons. inferior to those of other nations.

While ncyt joining the senseless attack on Sir Edward Grey by his own press, it was a fact, said the leader of of the Unionists, that the Morocco incident ended to the advantage of France, while we got all the ill-will. We drifted to the verge of war because responsible Ministers led foreign nations to believe the Government would never assert its rights by force.

Mr Lloyd George's Mansion House speech, continued the speaker, saved us from war but it accentuated Germany's ill-will. It would require a generation of sane statesmanship to live it down.

_ The Radicals had increased the national expenditure to the extent of £40,000,000. Much of it was spent upon a swarm of new officials, numbering nearly six thousand, half of whom were appointed without competition.

Revolutionary governments were always corrupt governments. Capital was leaving; the country to an extent unknown in previous history. There seemed no bottom to the drop in consols. The Government had hitherto been preparing machinery for its destruction, which would come^into operation next session. The Premier'told them woman's suffrage would be a national disaster, yet expressed his willingness to perpetrate that disaster.

He asked. "Has ever British statesmanship fallen so low?" He believed the Government was already in difficulties over a constructive Bill, acceptable to Ireland and possible to England.

"What hiimbuars these people are! 7' said Mr Law. "They employ trickery and methods of the artful dodger. Their methods last session were a disgrace to the Government and a degradation to the House of Commons."