IMPERIAL POLITICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 13947, 2 January 1906, Page 7

IMPERIAL POLITICS.

SPEECH BY MB. CHAMBERLAIN

THE FISCAL QUESTION. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, December 31.

Mr Chamberlain, speaking at Birmingham, said that Sir Henry Camp-bell-Bannerman’s policy was the old Newcastle programme, omitting the reference to the House of Lords. He suggested that Mr Redmond had been “squared,” consenting to put Home Rule on the shelf if granted a Catholic University for Ireland, allowed to deal as ho pleased with the loyalist minority and control the Irish police. It was a political crime. He referred to the issue so hastily and prematurely of ai despatch like Lord Elgin’s. It was so loosely and vaguely worded that it was impossible to understand it. Whatever the merits of the Chinese labour question, it was one that the colonies, not. Britain, should decide, unless the Imperial Government meant to info "in a self-governing colony “ we only allow you to decide in accordance with our prejudices and our ideas.” "That would prove a-fatal'game, and involve the loss of South Africa. If the Government meant to leave the colonies to decide then the despatch was a rnerq electioneering' handbill. Ha greatly feared that the fiscal question would bo complicated with numberless irrelevant issues. Free importers Were the real protectionists, their design bum* to protect foreigners in Britain’s .-markets. In 1884 Britain’s imports from Germany, Holland and Belgium were 201 millions, and exports 31 millions. In 1904 the imports were 52} millions, and the exports still 31 millions. That 'was the result of Bismarck’s high tariffs, excluding British goods and securing to Germans both the German and the British markets., Mr Chamberlain said that he desired not protection but restoration of equality of conditions. British trade with the colonies during the decade had increased by six millions, and foreign exports to the colonies had increased by 30 millions. It would be better for Britain to accept a colonial offer of reciprocity. HOME RULE. political Honours. LONDON, December 31. Sir Edward Grey, .speaking at Belmont, said that the Liberals were fighting this election on free trade. There would he no Homo Rule Bill without another special mandate from the people. The following political honours have been conferred:—Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, Sir Arthur Hayter, Mr Philip Stanhope, Mr Charles Hemphill, Sir James Joicey, Mr C. H. Wilson, members of the House of Commons, and Sir W. H. Wills has been 1 raised to the peerage. Mr Edmund Robertson, Mr Thomas Burt and Mr Henry Labouchere are among eight new, Privy Con noil lore. The executive of the United Irish League of Britain recommends Irish voters to do their utmost to securedho discomfiture of Unionists and support labourites if they are Home Rulers. Mr Chamberlain, in supporting Air Goillard’s candidature for East Bradford, stated that a duty of two shill, ings a quarter on foreign corn only would not be a heavy price to pay for preference on Bradford manufactures, which the great colonics could give security for. The woollen trade would command their ever-growing markets. > THE PROSPECTS OF HOME RULE. VIEWS OF THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE. The Duke of Devonshire, in a letter to the Hon Arthur Elliot, says that it is highly improbable that the Government will risk the introduction into the next Parliament of a measure for the establishment of an Irish legislature. If there is still danger to the union, it will be in the remoter future. The Duke of Devonshire, in his letter, said that the issue, freetrado or protection, was paramount. Under cover of Mr Balfour’s appeal to the party to sanction some undefined departure from the existing system, the Tariff League was .vigorously agitating, for more extreme measures, intended not merely to draw the colonics closer, but to avowedly protect Home manufacturers and workmen from foreign competition. In fact, Mr Balfour admitted at Leeds that his,followers were justified in resisting those features of protection which Mr Balfour never accepted. Ho urged Unionist freetraders to take such action as would prove that the Unionist Party, whether, in office or opposition, was still not committed to a retrograde policy, by whomsoever proposed. THE IRISH POSITION. HOME RULE DEMANDED. Speaking at Glasgow on November 1C Mr John Redmond outlined the Nationalist view of the situation. Ho said that upon no occasion in the past had he ever to deal with a situation at once so critical as that which confronted the Irish movement at this moment; anti he was most sincerely anxious to use the opportunity which was afforded to him that night to remove, if ho could, some of the misconceptions with reference to th© position and prospects of the Irish movement which seemed to have arisen recently in the public mind of this country, and to restate, as plainly as it was possible for him to do, what were the demands, and the hopes of the Irish people at this serious juncture in their fortunes, ills speech would not bo to the Irish

bo much as to tho leaders of British political parties, who wore about to submit themselves or their followers,to the judgment of the electors. . FIFTY YEARS BEHIND. What in reality and in substance was the Irish question at this moment ■which confronted «.ne British statesman ? No ■man who had the confidence of the Irish people was qualified to take part, iu the government of Ireland. Sir Antony AlacDonne!! had been denounced by many .sections of British politicians in this land, and many people in this country had protested against his appointment to a minor office in the Government of Ireland. Why? __W as it because he was an incompetent man ? His record showed that he was a man of surpassing ability, service, and experience. TV hat was his disqualification? He had only one, and that was that he was suspected of- having some sympthy with the sentiments of the people he was sent to govern. The Government of Ireland was carried on against the will of the Irish people. They in the House of Commons were powerless in the settlement of Irish affairs, though very often very potent in the settlement of English affairs. They were in a permanent minority m the government of their country. At home they could not build a- bridge, construct a tramway, they could not do any of the elementary duties of local • government without going to the House of Commons for the permission of Englishmen and Scotchmen. They had no voice in Irish legislation, taxation, and administration'. Justice aud police in Ireland cost three times what it cost in Scotland, while the whole government of Ireland was more than the cost of . the government of Belgium. They were fifty years behind the least progresive country in Europe. RESOLUTE GOVERNMENT. Nothing was done for Irish indus- • tries. It was monstrous that while the population of Ireland was going down, the cost of governing the country had gone up three millions in ten years. There was only one section fairly satisfied with the present condition of things, and that was made up of the place men and the expectant place men. The professional class and traders were just as dissatisfied with the position of things in.lreland as they were. Ireland was dissatisfied, and would remain dissatisfied ■so long as this system of rule continued.' The present system of government was incapable of■ promoting the material and intellectual progress .of the people. The twenty years of resolute government promised was up this year, and in spite of conciliation from time to time, and coercion, the Irish question remained exactly where it was. Many of the men, the best men, that had been sent over from England to govern Ireland during the last hundred years had returned broken and despairing of Ireland. They came back convinced - Home Rulers, convinced that the remedy which had been effective ■ everywhere else in the world was that the responsibility of government should be cast on the shoulders of 'the people themselves. The Liberal Party, they knew, proposed the. only real settlement, and that was the . Gladstone policy; but a great deal of water had run under the bridges since 1881" and 1893. Gladstone was dead.' Parnell was dead, and the Liberal Party had been out of office all these years, and had not felt the pressure of this Irish question as they would have felt it if f they had been in office, and as they would feel it. After the Liberal Party had voted for his amendment to ■ the King’s Speech, it was impossible for them to refuse to provide a remedy. Having voted in favour of his amendment, ■he asked would they have any moral power behind them to compel the Irish people to-morrow by force to submit to a system of government which they had solemnly condemned by ■ their votes on that occasion? The answer was obvious; having voted for that amendment, it would be impossible for them to attempt to coerce the • Irish people to submit to. that system of government. He endorsed the words , recently uttered by Mr John Morley. DEVOLUTION NO REMEDY. Some Liberals, however, thought that the situation he had described could be adequately dealt! with by what they called administrative Home Rule, or, as some others called [ it, devolution—a policy which would consist of dismissing some of the Orangemen in Dublin Gastle and putting Nationalists-in their places, some such policy, ho supposed, as transferring to an Irish tribunal in Dublin the management of Irish Private Bills and subjects of that sort. He wished to say to the statesmen , who put forward these views that their ideas would afford absolutely no remedy for the state of grievances admitted. He warned the Liberal Party, with all respect, to turn a deaf ear to those who were inclined to tempt them away from the straight path, and into the devious, crooked, and unsafe path of repudiation of ancient pledges, arid the pro- : poeal of ridiculous and unmeaning po'licies such as these. He said deliberately, if the Liberal Party in the next Parliament turned its back upon its obligations to Ireland, and even dreamed of satisfying and settling the Irish question "upon such lines as he , had stated, the result would be disastrous to their own party, and they would find before many months were over, that they had the Irish question upon them once again with all the intensity and all the insistence of 1891 and 1896. Who else had changed, the Irish Party had riot changed. Their policy was to push forward the creation of an Irish Legislature, and Irish Executive responsible to it, by every means in their power at the general election and after the general election, so far as the power existed in their hands, they would not submit to a repudiation of pledges upon the Irish question. He , regarded the proposed, the indefinitely ■ hanging-up of Home Rule just -as much * repudiation as the more out-spoken end more shameless repudiation which they bad heard from the lips of Lord Rosebery. The Irish electors'weird re asked in the coming election to nut Home Rule and its interrests above every other question. He could not conceive a set of circumstances arising in which the Irish electors ought . to give their; votes in'favour of Liberals who had openly, defiantly and insultingly repudiated their pledges to Ireland. Wherever it was possible, Mr Redmond thought, the Irish electors ought to give a preference to Labour candidates. The Irish Party was a Labour Party itself. Every Labour member in the House of Commons was a. friend of Ireland, indeed, their most trusted friend in the House of Commons; and he hoped to seo the Labour Party there stronger in numbers than at present. Labour was scandalously under-represeuted in . the House of Commons. It ought to be the duty of Liberal leaders, to make such arrangements as would facilitate the return at the ■ general election of a largely increased nmpber of Labour members, and he (Mr Redmond) would be glad to co-operate in such an arrangement. t He was never more confident of the V cause of Ireland. The cause was moving, not by riot, as in Russia, but by reason. Lord Rosebery had asked them to think Imperially. Mr Redmond invited him to think Imperially on the Irish question. If they oould take a

poll of nie. Empire they would carry Home Rule for Ireland. The day was Dot far distant when the whole people of Great Britain would wonder how it was that British statesmen ever hesitated for a moment to restore the jKiw.er of self-government to Ireland-

that power which, when the day came, would have proved to have been the means of changing Ireland from what it was to-day—the one danger in the Empire, the one disgrace, the greatest disgrace of British statesmanship—to a contented and friendly nation.