BRITISH POLITICS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19015, 10 November 1923, Page 15

BRITISH POLITICS.

THE PROTECTION ISSUE. SIR EDWIN CORNWALL’S VIEWS. (Fnou Our Own- Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, November 9. Sir Edwin Cornwall, who is well known in English polities, is at present in Wellington. Sir Edwin is a Liiiera!, but believes that tho party that is in a majority should govern. At the moment there was a fairly general opinion that the Government should not be pressed, but if Mr Baldwin went to tho country, as lie proposed on the issue of Protection, he would arouse at once storms of political thought and issues that would certainly be very holly contested. He considered that it would he better to defer plunging the nation into party strife lilt the Empire had hail some time to recuperate. If an early election took place and Mr Baldwin advocated some form of protective duties he (Mr Baldwin) would probably win it on the abstract principle, but it would be a mistake to assume that, if the election wore so won if, would mean that Protection would follow. While a plausible case could be made out of Protection in tho abstract, it was a very different, matter to put it into practice. It was only when a Government went to the House of Commons with a proposal to establish a specific duty that the real effect of the duty became known Sir Edwin Cornwall said lie did not think that a Government advocating Protection could last long if if tried to press its proposals through Parliament.