THE PLIGHT OF THE TORIES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7020, 7 January 1910, Page 6

THE PLIGHT OF THE TORIES

When tho offers of naval assistance went from os'er-sca Dominions to the Old Country last year the Leader of the Conservative Party in 1 England was good enough to descend to the expedient of making party capital out of the incident, ■ using it as a weapon' with which to belabour the Government. So flagrantly demagogic, so utterly unfounded, were his utterances on that occasion that they momentarily pnt colonial Governments- in an extremely unfortunate position, and from this they were only extricated by a spirited protest from Sir Joseph. Ward. This on being cabled to London and published.', in the newspapers there immediately put a stop to tho rather shabby tricks the Tory party were playing w'ith colonial sentiment: Yet, though these people have ceaßed from further offence in this direction, they seem to be past praying for in the unscrupulous- use of the .colonies* to buttress tariff reform. Mr Chamberlain is tho most shameless offender, •ut Mr Balfour is entitled to a not inconsiderable share of reprobation. A few days' ago we had occasion to comment upon the former's tactics in attempting to gull the British public' into believing that colonial people were anxiously waiting to learn whether "the door was to be again slammed in their face." The fact is, of course, that they are not doing anything of the sort. On the contraty, they view the present controversy ia Britain as being purely domestic, and almost to a man repudiate the suggestion that they believe the safety of the Empire depends upon a Tarrifite victory at the polls. Yet the Conservatives go on pretending to speak for the colonies in this matter, and yesterday we had a particularly objectionable instance of their methods. It was contained in the cabled report of Mr Balfour's speech s at Hanley, one of his utterances being: " 1 would nover associate myself with a party which, when invited by our ■liildren to take the plain step of preference for promoting closer unity, repudiated the invitation with scorn." This is surely a most monstrous perversion of the truth. The implication is that tho Tories arc burning with zeal to givo effect to the expressed wishes of Greater Britain, whose overtures Mr Asquith and his colleagues have treated with indifference —that the policy Mr Balfour has supported and now advocates lias the approval of Britons oversea. It is sad to see a onco great political party going into battle on crutches such as this. If its leaders knew the facts they would realise that colonials do not care a snap of the fingers for tho Tariff Reform propaganda. The interest they once took in the question has been shattered by the ambiguities ,of its sponsors. The politician who ' would tell colonial peoplo that Customs duties on fopd aro the antidote of a " Socialism" which would tax tho increment of land values would ; find it hard to, convince them he was serious. If in addition he insisted upon hereditary principle being tha governing factor in tho Legislature, tho among his hearers that they were being mado the victims of a> rather bad joke would deepen into conviction. This is what Mr Balfour is doing, and at the samo timo glibly making it understoo3 that tho colonies aro encouraging him to ga