TARIFF REFORM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14000, 4 March 1909, Page 5

TARIFF REFORM.

GLASGOW BY-ELECTION. LIBERAL BADLY BEATEN. THE TURN OF • THE TIDE." By Telegraph.—Press Association.— Copyright. (Received March 3, 11.10 p.m.) ' " London, March 3. The by-election for the Central Glasgow seat, rendered necessary by the death of the late member, Sir Andrew Torrance \ (Liberal) has resulted in a big victory for tariff reform. The voting was as follows:— , Mr. C. Scott Dickson (C!) 7298 Mr. T. Gibson Bowles (L.) 5185 . Majority for Dickson ... 2113 Mr. Bowles kept free trade predominant during the contest. The Glasgow Herald, sinking the fiscal issue for the time being, supported Mr. Dickson. The Opposition is jubilant, this being the first victory for tariff reform in Scotland since the general election. At the general election Sir Andrew Torrance (Liberal) secured 6720 votes, -while the Conservative candidate, Mr. John G. A. . Baird, obtained 6289. This is the second by-election in Scotland within a week, and while it is the first seat to be won by the tariff reformers the Forfarshire by-election, a few days, showed how the tide was turning, the majority of the Radical candidate over the Unionist showing a considerable reduction as compared with the voting at the general election. Mr. Dickson, who has defeated Mr. Bowles, was member for Bridgeton division of Glasgow from 1900 to 1906. From 18S6 to 1903 he held the poet of Solicitor-General. Mr. Bowles sat as Unionist member for King's Lynn from 1892 to 1906, but his convictions forced him to leave the Unionist fold, and he sought election as a freetrader.

THE GENERAL ELECTION.

PREPARING FOR THE FIGHT.

London, March 2.

Sir A. Acland Hood, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury in the Balfour Government, speaking at a tariff reform gathering at St. Stephen's, deprecated Unionist freetraders appealing ?to the constitu- | encies on the basis of offering them- ; selves for re-election if unable to I support a tariff reform Budget. The better course, he said, would be for them to stand down altogether at the general election. FEELING IN TRADE CIRCLES. THE NEW FRENCH TARIFF. London, March 2. The Association of the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom, byM6 votes to 31, with 32 delegates remaining neutral, carried . a resolution favouring tariff reform. • (Received March 3, 11.10 p.m.) London, March 3. . The Associated. Chambers of Commerce resolved that the -proposed French duties ■, are - prejudicial to British interests, and • that Government action is desirable. • ■•Negotiations for 1 an Anglo-French treaty of commerce, based on equality of treatment were also favoured.

That the feeling in favour of tariff reform is growing in England is undoubted— a fact which, strikes the colonial visitor very forcibly. Only recently Mr. A. W. Meeks, M.L.C. (chairman of the A.M.P. Society), returned to Sydney from London, and he stated that in England at present the question of tariff reform is agitating the.public mind a good deal, and the feeling is growing strongly in its favour. "The question is also brought prominently to the front," he said, " because there is a growing Empire feeling in England, and public men are beginning to speak more and more in this direction. Trade, too, at 'present, is not > too; good, and all this leads the people to start the question of tariff reform, which would not have been perhaps so favourably considered in a boom time I want to impress strongly the fact of the Empire feeling, because I really felt that it was growing very strongly. The tariff is supported, of course, on various grounds. Some are for preference, others retaliation, and so on. But I was much struck to find such a strong feeling among business and financial men in the city m favour of tariff reform. r I discussed it neither from a free trade nor protectionist point ■of view. There is evidently a change of feeling coming. And whether it is called preference or retaliation, there is a desire' to help the manufacturing interests of the Empire. I must say in the city I found verv few leading business men opposed to tariff reform. The Conservatives are making it their fight. As to whether they will get in, the by-elections, I suppose, are the best guide, and nearly all -the recent by-elections fought out on this issue have gone in favour of the Conservatives." .