IMPERIAL POLITICS

Otago Witness, Issue 3114, 19 November 1913, Page 30

IMPERIAL POLITICS

CABINET MEETING

LONDON, November 12. A prolonged Cabinet meeting has been held.

It is understood that Lord Haldane’s Committee, which is dealing with the reform of the House of Lords, lias concluded its work, and prepared a scheme substituting the elective system for the Second Chamber. The Bill is to be introduced in 1914.

There are good grounds for believing that the prolonged Cabinet meetings are due to the Government being concerned over the set backs at Heading and Linlithgow, and that it is further perturbed at the obvious resentment by Labour of the prosecution of Larkin. The Cabinet ha« definitely begun to consider the practical possibilities of giving effect to Mr Asquith’s invitation for an interchange of suggestions and views between the parties.

November 17.

Mr Fielding, late Minister of Finance in the Canadian Cabinet, in a letter to the press, says that the Motherland is drifting into a very dangerous position. He urges the Federal system in the United Kingdom as a basis of a conference of all parties. Ho is convinced with his long experience in Canada that there will bo no difficulties in the system that cannot be overcome.

THE BY-ELECTIONS

LONDON, November 10.

Referring to the result of the Linlithgow election, Mr Keir Hardie said that the Independent Labourites voted for the Tory candidate as a protest against Larkin’s arrest and the Home Secretary's (Mr M’Kenna) silence in the notorious Piccadilly Flat case. The only chance of the Government continuing in office was to keep the workers poor and at work, by murdering them in the mines, and by maiming them in mills and on railways.

November 11

The by-election for Keighley, rendered, necessary by the appointment of Mr S. O. Buckmaster K.C., as Solicitor-general, resulted as follows :

Buckmaster (Liberal) ... 4740 Lascelles (Unionist) 3852 Poland (Labour) 3645

At the by-election in October, 1911, the figures were :—Buckmaster, 4667 ; Acworth (U.), 3842; Anderson (L), 3452.

November 12.

Mr Lloyd George stated that ho was not the least disconcerted over the results of the Reading and Linlithgow elections, in which the imprisonment of Larkin was the most prominent feature. The land propaganda had not yet had time to make itself felt.

PREFERENTIAL TARIFF

LONDON, November 13.

Speaking at the National Unionist Confgerence at Norwich, Mr A. Bonar Law declared that when the Unionists were in power they would impose a 10 per cent, tariff on all foreign-manufactured goods and would give the oversea dominions preference, and devote portion of the revenue thus obtained to lighten the burdens of the agriculturists.

November 14

Mr A. Bonar Law, while recognising tha importance of tariff reform, said it eank into insignificance in the face of the presence of dangers threatening the country. Referring to the land campaign, he said that Mr Lloyd George had apparently been sent out into the cold world alone, to sink or swim. The Chancellor had likened himself to the stormy petrel, but ho rather resembled the ostrich dropping its eggs in the sand, and leaving their subsequent fate to the wind or the eun. The land tax was an egg which yielded £23,000, but cost £1,300,000 in valuations and collections. The Insurance Bill was another egg, and was causing many of the great friendly societies to drift rapidly into insolvency. The greatest egg was the campaign against the land-owners. The Government should have endeavoured to secure the co-opera-tion of all classes interested in the land instead of entering upon a campaign against one class.

UNIG NIST CONFERENCE. LONDON, November 15,

Mr Bonar Law, speaking at the Norwich Unionist Conference; said that the greatest possible misfortune had overtaken the Ministry. They have been found out. For years they had been posted as the Pharisees of Politics. They were still Pharisees, but Pharisees stripped of their phylacteries. They were naked, but not even ashamed. LI HER AL DEMONSTRATION. LONDON, November 16. A largo Liberal demonstration at the Alexandra Palace was interrupted for several minutes through the uproar caused by suffragettes and friends of Larkin. Mr Winston Churchill said that there was a strong opinion on both sides in favour of a settlement by consent of the problem in Ireland, and a strong feeling that the Nationalists should receive their freedom by means of money to make selfgovernment successful. It was also felt that Protestant Ulster should somehow be satisfied and comforted, and the United Kingdom freed from old-world hatreds. Mr Churchill concluded his address by a strong advocacy of the Government’s policy of land reform.