SEVERAL IMPORTANT SPEECHES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 12720, 17 November 1903, Page 5

SEVERAL IMPORTANT SPEECHES

LONDON, November 15.. Mr -Arnold Forster, speaking at the annual banquet of the Anchor Society at Bristol, said the Cabinet was Protectionist up to the hilt. The Government ought to straightforwardly tell the country what it meant. Mr Chamberlain's and the Government's policies were identical, and both were dangerous to trade, manufactures, agriculture, the working classes, and progress, and would tend to disintegrate the Empire and disturb the union at present founded on something .higher and nobler than mere huckstering. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, while steadfastly opposing Mr Chamberlain's unauthorised programme, said he was prepared to support Mr Balfour's policy. He admitted that foreign tariffs and dumping had seriously injured British exports and some industries. Unholy trusts and combinations were also injurious, and he was opposed to both illegitimate dearness and * cheapness through the operation of trusts and tariffs. The Government's policy of penalising foreign exports, unless Protectionist countries treated us fairly, was the policy embodied in the Sugar Convention, and might be applied with great advantage to other home industries. It was essential to trust the Government to recognise that an ample and cheap supply of coal and raw material was necessary for Britain's welfare. If the choice lay between standing oa absolutely old lines or a genuine change of fiscal police "I prefer the latter, and I concur wih Mr Balfour's remarks about the favoured nation clause. While negotiating the Sugar Convention, I was much struck by the immense importance foreigners attached to our free trade market, and their intense fear of being deprived of it. If the British Government obtains the power to negotiate, it will be able to employ two great levers —fears lest foreign countries be deprived of the British market, and the growing popular dislike of European countries to the burdens of Proection. I do not believe the destinies of the country are safe in Radical hands. Both Mr Balfour's and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach's speeches were delivered at the annual dinner of the Dolphin Society.