IMPERIAL TRADE.

Waikato Argus, Volume XV, Issue 6043, 17 September 1903, Page 2

IMPERIAL TRADE.

London, September 15. The Cabinet to-day spent three hours in discussing the fiscal question. The Standard says it is understood that the Government will adhere to its determination to attempt no innovation of policy until after appealing to the country. The action of the Ministers, meanwhile, will be limited to discussions and inquiry. The proposal to establish preference within the Empire will be indefinitely postponed and form 110 part of the Government's collective policy. The Government, however, are prepared to claim the right of retaliating upon foreigners whose tariff* are aimed at destroying and hampering British commerce. The Standard adds that this policy is not acceptable to several members of the Cabinet.

The Standard deprecates any Ministerial resignation, arid declare's that it will be unnecessary, inasmuch as measures to meet the unfair dumping of foreign products in Great Britain are not an attack upon the principle of free trade, while the increasingly critical foreign situation, and the urgency of army reform, demand the energies of a strong and united Cabinet.

( The Standard adds that the question of a preferential tariff does not press for immediate solution. Meanwhile Ministers cannot act loyally together in their councils if they are conducting a campaign against one another in their constituencies.

This journal warns the Government of the risk- of re-opening the breach and precipitating a session of formidable revolt.

Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, replying to an Irish correspondent, declared that he could not imagine how the fiscal proposals of Mr Chamberlain could benefit Irish produce, aiming as they did at the United Kingdom's food supplies coming not from home sources, but from the colonies, instead of from foreign countries.