IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2673, 7 June 1905, Page 19

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

THE UNEMPLOYED BILL.

LONDON, May 30.

j.»at Gerald) Balfour has promised to consider amendments making the Unemployed Bill compulsory in large towns, and possibly in Tiiral areas ; also othsr amendments within the intention of the bill.

June 3.

Mr Balfour address-ing the National "Union Conservative Constitutional Association at the Albert Hall regarding the Colonial Conference, said that unless the Unionists were returned to power at the next elections the whole plan for the reference of "the fiscal question to a double election would collapse, and a new situation be created under new conditions. Would the Opposition, if returned, treat with contempt the oft-expressed wish of the colonies and without examination or consultation reject overtures? He, at anyrate, would give a pledge that if the Radicals, in th© event of their return to power, treated the question Imperially he would not follow their example and treat it as a, party instrument. Besides the unity of the Kingdom, the Unionists were entrusted with the great cause of Imperial defence, the great ideals of closer union with the colonies, and reform of the fiscal system, which was no longer adequate or fitted to our needs. Protectionists and Freetraders were all surely of one mind that their interests would be furthered by the same power to negotiate effectively. Why, in Heaven's name, did they not agree upon it?

Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, speaking at Oxford, declared that it was a solemn farce for the colonial Premiers to confer while Mr Balfour was unable to say he spoke with the nation's authority. The Liberals would faithfully and zealously follow Lord Lansdowne's foreign policy.

Sir Edward Grey, S}>eaking at the Eighty Club, referring to the Colonial Conference, said the colonies ought to be told the truth that taxing the Motherland's food was an unsafe basis of Empire. Everything short of complete Freetrade without the Empire in the way of fiscal adjustment would prove not a bond of union but the contrary.