IMPERIAL RECIPROCITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12759, 9 January 1905, Page 4

IMPERIAL RECIPROCITY.

Tin; tariff discussion in the United Kingdom appears to have reached the vituperative stage, spokesmen of the Opposition insisting that the colonies are utterly selfish in the matter, and seek to take horn the Mothci Country without giving return. Mr. Chamberlain is hotly combating this, but he must take comfort from the proof it. presents that the fiscal attitude of the colonies is no longer in question. The patient tenacity with which British "Free Importers'' clung to the delusion that the colonies did not want reciprocity, and that any statesman 01 journal asserting the contrary was deliberately misrepresenting the case, has evidently passed. It is practically admitted that Over-sea Britain does want an Imperial fiscalism. and. the Opposition falls hack upon the plea of colonial selfishness and greediness.' This is the Opposition that quotes with approval and enthusiasm the statements of German ''economists" and newspapers to the effect that any departure from " Free Trade" by England will be a very retrograde step and a sad injury to the progress

of t .h3 whole world. But the majority of Englishmen arc not so con •Lied as to answer a Mtohcoto„ist with abuse because he disagiees with them as to. what is good foi l the Empire .and- to join hands with interested foreigners against- a national policy. A great nation cannot be converted at once from Cobdcnism to reciprocity, but the opposition to fiscal reform in the United Kingdom is displaying a temper that shows Mr. Chamberlain's task to be very far from impossible.