AUSTRALIAN TARIFF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13524, 23 August 1907, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN TARIFF.

BIRMINGHAM EXPORTERS.

WILL THEY TAKE IT LYING

DOWN V

Br Telegraph.—Press Association— Copyright.

(Received August 22. 0.20 p.m.)

London, August 22. When Mr. Winston Churchill (Under-Secretary for the Colonies) announced in the House of Commons that Sir Win. Lyne (Federal Minister for Customs) was unable to defer the collection of the new duties, Mr. Harold Cox (Liberal member for Preston) shouted, " Will Birmingham commercial men take this lying down 1" (Received August 22. 10.55 p.m.) London, August 22. The chairman of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce declares that in some cases the new Australian tariff is prohibitive, and intends to confer with other chambers on the subject. DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. MR. REID'S SPEECH. Melbourne, August 22. In the Federal House of Representatives last evening Mr. 0. H. Reid opened the deoate on the new tariff. The Opposition Leader made a general attack on the Government proposals, and said the people had been invited by him to leave the tariff as it was, but bad refused to endorse his policy, and by a two to one majority bad pledged members to increase the tariff. It would be a monstrous absurdity, he said, to ask these members to go against their pledges, but at the same time he did not think people in their maddest moments expected instalments of protection such as was now proposed. He intimated that the task he had set himself was to reduce the duties, in the hope of securing a revenueproducing tariff.