THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 1904. BRITISH POLITICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12524, 17 March 1904, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, MARCH 17, 1904. BRITISH POLITICS.

While a political calm reigns in New Zealand, and even the Premier is forced to admit that people are too busy with their own affairs to give any heed to politics—a state of things not altogetheiunacceptable to Mr. Seddon—a very different condition of affairs prevails in the Mother Country. There the whole land is ringing with the cries of rival political factions, and a campaign is being earned on with a bitterness and passion not equalled even by the neat and acrimony of the Home Rule controversy in the Gladstonian days. On the public platform and in the press—indeed, in Parliament itself speakers and writers permit themselves to use language which we had imagined had gone out of fashion among those claiming to be leaders of public opinion, and to indulge in personalities which neither political eminence nor noble birth nor wit nor reputation can redeem from the charge of vulgarity. When we find a politician of Lord Rosebery' rank and responsibility so far forgetting himself as to refer in a speech in the House of Lords to the Premier of Great Britain as "Pretty Fanny,", we cannot wonder if smaller controversialists strive to out-Rosebery Rosebery in their disregard of good taste and manners, or if the whole tone of political discussion become vitiated and lowered. To those, at ft distance from the theatre of war it is a matter of surprise that so much heat should have been generated by a practical proposal put forward for no other purpose than to consolidate and unify the Empire, and strengthen and conserve its great commercial interests. . For though there are other political questions which are occupying public attention in the Mother Country at the present moment it is the question of fiscal reform that is responsible for the ferment that we are witnessing, and the fierce agitation that is being carried on from one end of the country to the other. Because Mr. Balfour has modestly suggested that the time has come for John Bull to waken up and protect himself against his foreign rivals, even as they protect themselves against him, and because Mr. Chamberlain has proposed that the Mother Country and' the colonies should be drawn closer together by the adoption of a system of preferential . trade, these two statesmen are denounced as if they were traitors to their King and country, and animated by the basest motives. A foreigner might be excused for expecting to see them impeached and possibly beheaded in the Tower, for he could not well imagine that in England of all countries in the world statesmen were liable to be attacked in language so violent unless they were guilty of the gravest political crimes. Even Britishers themselves, if they happen to be colonials as well, are a little puzzled to understand why there should be all this tumultuous fuss because Mr. Balfour has uttered the Word " retaliation," and Mr. Chamberlain the word " preference," instead of the worn-out shibboleths of a fiscal policy which is no longer in harmony with the spirit of the age.

It is somewhat difficult amid the confusion and strife now raging in British politics to discern with any clearness or certainty what is likely to be the end of it all. Indeed it is doubtful whether there is anyone who can predict with any degree of confidence what the verdict of the country will be when it is afforded an opportunity of pronouncing its opinion. That opportunity is not likely to be unduly delayed. Lord Rosebery seems to regard it as imminent, and , has already bespoken for the Ministerial recalcitrants the sympathy of the Liberal party, which may afford Mr. Winston Churchill and Lord Hugh Cecil some crumbs of comfort. It is very improbable, however, that the . Government will hurry on a dissolution before the important work of the Tariff Commission is finished. Some idea of the magnitude of that work may' be gathered from the fact that the Commission expect to' receive from the factories alone, of which there are some 100,000 in the country, nearly a million answers to. their various questions, which will require to be sifted, classified, and arranged, so as to be available for use in framing a tariff. Lord'Rosebery, in his role of phrasemonger, sneers at the Commission as "a Birmingham syndicate," but, as Mr. Chamberlain has remarked, it is a business commission for business men, and It is engaged on a work which, quite apart from its practical bearing on Great Britain's national policy, will be, as the London Times points out, o* the greatest' economic importance. But whenever the appeal to. the British electors may come, it will possess for the Empire a deep and special interest. Upon the success or defeat of the party at present in power depend issues which we believe to be fraught with momentous consequences to the Empire as a whole. Lord Rosebery may talk of preserv,-

ing the ■ continuity of foreign and colonial policy by " graceful curves," but there is nothing more certain than that the accession to office of the Campbell-Bannermans and the Morleys and Harcourts, with their motley Little Englanders, would mean the complete reversal of the present policy, and would let loose the forces ;of disorder and imperial disruption. If the rise and fall of Ministries at Home only affected the domestic policy of Great Britain the colonies could afford to look upon the struggles of parties for place and power with as little interest as their own party struggles are regarded by the people of the Mother Country. But the destinies of the Empire are in the keeping of the British Government, and may be vitally influenced for good or ill by the line of policy adopted on great Imperial questions, without the knowledge of the self-governing colonies. It is because of this tremendous power which is vested in the 'British -Ministry;"; of the day, and because of the enormous growth of colonial interests which have so greatly changed the relations of the colonies and the Motherland, that British politics are watched throughout the Empire with an interest and sometimes with an anxiety which statesmen at Home do not always realise. And we venture to say that on no previous occasion has that interest or anxiety been greater than it shows signs of being in connection With the political struggle which is impending in the United Kingdom.