BALFOUR'S GREAT SPEECH.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 12882, 24 September 1909, Page 5

BALFOUR'S GREAT SPEECH.

INDESCRIBABLE ENTHUSIASM. ELOQUENT PLEA FOR TARIFF REFORM. Press Association .— Telegraph .—Copyright . LONDON, September 22. Ten thousar-d .yore present at Air Balfour's mating at Bingley Hall, Uirmin^'bam, iu eluding 2309 representatives of the Unionist and Conservative Associations. Fifty thousand applications for admission were made. Peers, members of House of .Commons, and candidates filled the platform. Many ladies wen present. There was a scone of indescribable enthusiasm when Mr Balfour entered with Mrs Chamber!! iin. It was renewed when Mr Austin Chamberlain read MR. JOSEPn CHAMBERLAIN'S MESSAGE, as follows: — '•I hop© the Lords will see their way to foroe a general election, and. I don't doubt what the answer will be. Mr Asquith seeks to represent the Budget as of advants>%<} to working men. I cannot take this view. The Budget is a last effort by freetrade finan<yr>3 to find a substitute for tariff reform, a movement which I believe is a necessary remedy for the present want of employment. The Budget will supply us with money, but pt will deprive us of work. Therefore you have to ' choose between tariff reform — which assists trade, increases employment and secures fair contribution oi" revenue from foreigners using our 'markets, and a Budget which casts fresh burdens on our trade, hampers our industries and takes the commonest comforts from our people." MR. BALFOUR'S SPEECH. Mr Balfour, after commencing his speech, said the view that the Budget was a poor man's one was fanatical. If they could abolish poverty by abolishing riches the social reformer's task would be easy. Any fool' could destroy wealth. Mr. Asquith had initialed doctrines vrhii-h carried, by implication the whole socialistic creed. Tha Budget was not a continuation of the traditions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer during 60 years. It masqueraded in old clothes but they did not fit. "If you want to know what the bulk of the supportars of the Budget aro thinking don't go to Mr Asquiih or to those h« intended to placate last Friday, but go to the candid utterances of his more important colleagues. Mr Asquith's VMraioaof the Budget was intended for drawing-room use. It ia very different to that given in the .streeb corner oratory of his bristling 1 colleagues." Mr Balfour continued; saying: "Socialistic folly cannot go further than it has in the hands of the prcs3nt Government. With regard 1-0 land, the modern Radical Government says: 'Let us abandon small land ownership and only give small leasa ownership.' That see»ns--Socialisin goß©--inad. Se- ■ curity is the very 'essence of industrial success. You cannot confiscate tho property of A without making B tremble in his shoes. It is no use to pass philanthropic legislation if the poor are moro injured by the manner in which you obtain the money. You have mobile capital — international capital ready to move to America, Germany, or England. If he gets interest it matters little to tho rich capitalist whether he gets it by giving- employment in America, Britain, or Germany. Is it all one to the workers of this country? That is the problem you have to consider, and think it the root, the crucial point, the essential knot of this controversy. What we want is business, and the policy which gives business is the policy for the poor man. The rich can laugh at any Chancellor and the Exchequer. When in Birmingham two years ago, I pointed out that owing to the progress of expenditure, the need of finding 1 money would brine: home to every thinking 1 man the necessity for an alteration in the fiscal system. That prophesy has come true. The old system has broken- down. * The fiscal machinery must be scrap-, ped. It is intolerable that while America and Germany are allowed to forge weapons by which they are 'going to withdraw from our sphere of commercial influence our own colonies w© should sit with folded arms liidinsf behind antiquated formulae an-d refuse to look facts in tho face." Mr Balfour went on to say: "I confess I look with amazement, not contempt, upon those who, with perfect equanimity, face a situation which, if allowed to continue, will build up great communities surrounded by their own tariff walls against which wo will beat in vain, and will see the colonioe — dependencies of the Crown— belonging: economically, industrially and financially to some other commercial system than that of which we are the centre."