BRITISH POLITICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1924, Page 5

BRITISH POLITICS.

THE GOVERNMENT’S POLICY DIVISION OVER THE TARIFF. CABINET NOT IN AGREEMENT By Telegraph.—Press Assn.— Copyright. Received Jan. 4, 9 p.m. London, Jan. 4. Cabinet yesterday partly considered the King’s Speech, and consideration of it will be resumed next week. The political correspondent of the Daily Express states the rough draft makes reference to Imperial nreferfence and proposes Parliament’s confirmation of the conference decisions. A strong section of the Cabinet, however, advocated a full protectionist declaration, while another section advocated dropping the subject altogether. The discussion ended indecisively, the differences being so acute that several Cabinets will probably be necessary to arrive at an agreement. The Morning Post says Cabinet considered the correspondence of the City of London Conservatives and approved, with perhaps one exception, Mr. Baldwin’s attitude against approaching Mr. Asquith with a view to an understanding. The Daily Telegraph’s Parliamentary correspondent says there are heart-searchings among the Liberals regarding the >isdom of defeating Mr. Baldwin and installing Socialists. There is good authority for saying that a number of Liberal capitalists have protested that they did not subscribe to the party funds in order to assist in the creation of the first Socialist Government in Britain.

Mr. J. R. Clynes, writing*in the Daily Herald, ridicules the gibbering ghosts paraded by a section of the press in an attempt to terrify the public agtfmst a Labour Government. He says these will not frighten men and women who have had to face the realities of hunger and death. He argues that what the enemies of Labour really fear is not that Labour will fail to carry out its programme, but that it will succeed and prove itself fit to govern. LABOUR LEADER’S VIEWS. By Telegraph.—'Press Assn.—Copyright. London, Jan. 2. In a speech at Tamworth, dealing with Mr. Asquith’s contention that the Crown could refuse Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s authority to dissolve Parliament, Mr. Frank Hodges, M.P., declared that Labour believes it can consummate its programme through the British Constitution. He believed that it would not impede democratic aspirations, but if back-stair influence shattered the belief then good-bye to political evolution. They would 'drift into the rapids of revolution. He concluded that the Labour Party had, profound faith in the impartiality of the King, which no political intrigue should be permitted to destroy.