BRITISH UNIONISTS & FOOD TAXES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVIII, Issue XLVIII, 19 February 1913, Page 5

BRITISH UNIONISTS & FOOD TAXES

"A PRETENCE OF ABANDONMENT." (Press Association.—Copyright.; LONDON. February 18. Mr Herbert Samuel, in a speech at Loftus, said Mr Bonar Law and his colleagues pretended to throw food taxes over the cliffs, well knowing that they might reappear some day from Aus tralia or elsewhere at the Colonial Conference, under another name.

(The "Montreal Star," which is in very close touch with the Prime Minister, Mi- Borden, stated in a recent :s----sue':—"There is an astonishing- canard in a daily paper this morning to the effe'ct that Lord Lansdowne and ill* Bonar Law are inextricably committed o to the fooa taxes by reason of an agreement with Mr Borden made when he was in England last summer. It does not need a denial from the Premier v to dispose of it, but it serves a good purpose in "that it-gives us an opportunity ,to- sav that no 1 one in Canada —the Prime Minister or the grain grower—wants the British public to tax their food unwillingly for our sweet sakes. The last thing vSe would desire in this prosperous country would be that the least important citizen of the United Kingdom should feel for a moment that he was finding his daily loaf a cromb the smaller in order that fat farmers of the Canadian provinces should pocket larger profits. Nothing would so quickly turn the entire democracy o' Great Britain against Imperial uniVv, which is a necessity alike to Canada and to the Mother Country. The only < tation that Canadians have ever had with regard to a British preference has been based upon the supposition that Great Britain might think it wise to : impose a tariff upon certain products which Canada supplies and then to exempt the Colonies from that tariff. It is our belief that sooner or later —and . ;oon rather than later—such a tariff would not be a tax at all, but would merely confine the patronage of (British consumers British producers.")