GOVERNMENT CENSURED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 440, 4 December 1930, Page 7

GOVERNMENT CENSURED

BRITISH TARIFF POLICY VOTE OF HOUSE OF LORDS. STRONG INDICTMENT VOICED |By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright.] Received Dec. 3, 9.50 p.m. LONDON, Dee. In the House of Lords, Lord Hail sham, in an unusually crowded House, moved a motion eploring the Government’s failure to respond to the Dominions- Offers aiming at closer fiscal relations. He said that thanks to the Government’s obstinacy and mismanagement thev had let down the people of Britain and the Empire. 1 hey had made up their minds before the Imperial Conference against tai iff preference which the conference never seriously considered. He had not been surprised at Mr Thomas’ offensive and unjustified phrase “humbug,” for Mr Snowden, before the conference, in a press article, had described all the talk of Imperial preference as “bunkum. If we did not prefer the possibilities of a United Empire to election cries ot dear food, then disintegration of the Empire must inevitably follow Ihe only hope for the Ottawa conference was for the people of Britain to be given a chance to condemn the Government’s bigotry and pendantry. Lord I’assfield, replying, said that Mr Bennett (Prime Minister of Canada' proposed that Britain should reverse her fiscal policy by taxation of food, while Canada merely altered the details of her own policy. It was not the policy of Labour or Liberals, nor as yet even’Conservatives, to tax wheat imports for the sake of preference. Mr Baldwin’s latest declaration did not propose a tax on imported wheat bu. a subsidy on Home grown out of tne proceeds of duties on imported manufacturos. . , Lord Hailsham’s motion was earned by 74 votes t<> 111.I 11 .