TARIFF ELECTION

Southland Times, Issue 19101, 20 November 1923, Page 5

TARIFF ELECTION

CAMPAIGN IN FULL SWING THREE PARTIES ACTIVE WOMEN S GREAT PART. (By Telegraph—Press Assn—Copyright). (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, November 19. (Received November 19, 8.0 p.m.) A feature of the British election, the campaign in connection with which is now in full swing, will be the great part played by women workers of all parties. Labour is relying to an unprecedented degree upon women helpers, who will specialise on doorstep propaganda. The Conservatives claim they are better organised on the women’s side than the rival parties. During the year hundreds of women speakers have attended special classes where they have been coached in their opponent’s policies and heckled by experts who compel them to reply to every point on which a Liberal or a Labour interjector may attack them. Twenty-two women candidates have already been chosen and others are probable. Lady Rhondda is the probable Liberal candidate for PontypooL The Liberals have eight and Labour nine against the Conservative’s four women. Lieut.-Colonel Buckley states that he resigned the Parliamentary Secretaryship of the Overseas Trade Department because he is a Free Trader. He has not yet decided whether he will contest the Waterloo division again. Mr Harold Spencer writes to the Press suggesting as the maintenance of Free Trade is the supreme issue at the election Liberalism and Labour ought to have an electoral understanding. He points out that the Conservatives in 1922 won 90 out of 176 three-cornered fights on minority votes owing to the division pf the majority vote between the Liberals and Labourites. There is, however, no prospect of agreement between the Liberal and Labour organisations to support one another’s candidates. A prominent Labourite stated: “We do not intend to clean plates for the Liberals to eat cff. Labour intends to fight alone henceforth, being hopeful of increasing representation in each successive Parliament until the Party obtains the majority.” “A REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE.” WINSTON CHURCHILL CRITICAL. LONDON, November 18. Mr Churchill, addressing a meeting at Manchester, declared that the Government was rushing electors with a hurriedly conceived and utterly unexplained scheme which revolutionised the commercial fiscal system. All constitutionalists should make a common effort to avert a threatened catastrophe. Free Trade had not prevented unity in the Empire in the past and would not do so in the future. The economic development of the Empire ought to be the care of all parties in the State. Free traders held themselves free to support say a scheme promoting inter-Imper-ial trade which would not cramp the world-wide enterprise of the people or Lurden necessaries of their lives. Later. Mr Winston Churchill has accepted an invitation to contest Leicester West. THE PREMIER’S APPEAL. NEED FOR TARIFF REVISION. LONDON, November 18. In a manifesto to his constituents Mr Stanley Baldwin says the object of imposng duties on manufactured goods will be: (1) To raise revenue by methods less unfair to Heme production; (2) to give special assistance to industries suffering from unfair foreign competition; (3) to utilise duties in order to negotiate for reduction of foreign tariffs; (4) to give substantial preference within the Empire on the whole range of duties. The manifesto mentions oats among Articles on which duties will not be imposed and estimates that additional revenue will be devoted inter alia to the reduction of duties on tea and sugar. It says a substantial portion of seventeen light cruisers and a variety of smaller craft required in the next few years will be laid down as loon as Parliamentary sanction is secured w order to assist the shipbuilding industry. APPEAL TO LABOUR. *A CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH.” LONDON, November 17. A manifesto issued by the Labour Party condemns tariffs which it contends will not remedy unemployment but poison the life of nations and impoverish the peoples. The Labour Party alone has a positive remedy for unemployment. The manifesto outlines in this regard an elaborate programme of national measures to restore prosperity to agriculture by establishing machinery, regulating wages and assisting co-operative methods. The party advocates a policy of international co-operation, through an enlarged League of Nations, the immediate convocation by Britain of an international conference to revise the Treaty of Versailles and resumption of relations with Russia. The manifesto condemns the failure of the Government to reduce the war debt and says a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer would immediately work out a scheme to impose a non-recurring graduated war debt redemption and a levy on all individual fortunes exceeding £5,000 which would be devoted solely to the reduction of the debt which would facilitate reduction of the income tax, abolition- of food taxes, entertainment tax, corporation profits’ tax, and provide money for social services. The Party aims at the creation of a commonwealth co-operative service by scientific organisation of industry and control of public utilities. LLOYD GEORGE’S INAUGURAL SPEECH. CAUSTIC CRITICISM. LONDON, November 18. A wonderful reception was accorded Mr Lloyd George’s first speech in the Liberal campaign at Northampton. A packed hall of nearly 3000 people thundered applause as the ex-Premier declared: “This is not a general election. It is a conspiracy. Mr Bonar Law placed a buoy in the channel, but mutineers got hold of a weak man on the bridge and persuaded him to pull up the buoy and the ship is now going headlong on to the rocks unless the people change the crew. The conspirators are now putting Lord Derby, Lord Salisbury' and Lord Robert Cecil under the hatches with the object of canning them before they are able to crawl away. Lord Derby managed to thrust out a claw, but he was captured, hermetically sealed and is now on sale on the tariff reform counter.” Mr Lloyd George described the Government’s fiscal proposals as subterfuge. A plan for the settlement of Europe remained the first necessity. They wanted protection, not from French goods, but French militarism. HEALING THE BREACH. CONSERVATIVES JOIN UP. LONDON, November 19. (Received November 19, 10 p.m.) There is every indication that the breach between Lord Birkenhead and Mr Austen Chamberlain on the one hand and the Government on the other has been healed on the basis of the two former vigorously supporting the Conservatives during the election in return for high office if the Government win, when it will be agreed to W bygones be bygones.