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Accession Declaration is now assured, and for this fact we have no hesitation at all in expressing the conviction that the Catholics of Ireland, moved by a correct and shrewd instinct, thank most and first of all King George the Fifth and his gracious Consort Queen Mary.

While endorsing the praise bestowed on Ministers

for their wise and statesmanlike action in connection with the measure so rapidly passed through the House of Lords . . . we see no reason why we should close our eyes to the circumstance that it is emphatically one which assuredly was never laid before Parliament without the approval and consent of the King, whom it affects far more intimately and personally than any of his subjects. It is generally believed, indeed, that his Majesty's action was a great deal more than merely of an acquiescent kind, and that with him and Queen Mary rests most of the credit for the reparation which has now been offered for the cruel oppression which compelled Edward the Peacemaker to pronounce before the assembled Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland the barbarous text which the bigotry and intolerance of bygone times imposed upon him.

Preference

TARIFF Reformers have done well this Session and have missed few opportunities of expounding their cause, among the most instructive debates towards the close of the Session being the discussion on Colonial Preference raised by Mr. J. F. Hope's motion on the Budget Resolutions to reduce the duty on tea grown within the British Empire to 4d. per lb., the duty on tea grown outside the Empire remaining at 5d. per lb. The effect of this amendment would give a preference of a penny, or 20 per cent., on tea grown under the flag. The speaker pointed out that the present tea duties could not be justified under any rational system of taxation, as on the lower qualities of tea the tax amounted to nearly 100 per cent. Of imported tea no less than 262,000,000 lbs. was Imperial tea, and only about 27,000,000 lbs. came from foreign countries. If a penny were taken off the former, tea would become cheaper, and as the proposal was experimental it could be withdrawn at any time if inconvenient. The Government rejected import duties lest they should benefit the home producer, but in this case Imperial sentiment could be gratified without any advantage to the home producer, as no one grew tea in this country, and such action would be an earnest that the Government were willing to yield something to Colonial sentiment. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer was neither trammelled by tradition nor bound down by parsimony. If

any one said "roads," Mr. Lloyd George replied, "Let them have half a million"; if some one said " development," he again replied, "Let them have half a million." Mr. Hope was making a small demand, and if any compensation was necessary an extra penny could be put on Chinese tea, together with a graduated scale ad valorem. Lord Ronaldshay seconded in a well-informed speech, and it must be said that Mr. Lloyd George's understudy, Colonel Seely of the swelled head was totally unable to make any serious reply to the arguments of the mover or the seconder, and simply fell back on a repetition of threadbare Cobdenite dogmas. "The Government rejected this proposal on every ground; they held that from a financial point of view it would involve too great a loss. They did not believe in cementing the Empire by tariffs." In other words, Ministers refuse to cheapen the food or drink of the British people for fear of consolidating the British Empire. That is Seelyism in a nutshell.

MR. LYTTELTON made a vigorous onslaught on the "stolid immobility" of Ministers. It was difficult to speak respectfully of the argument that they could not give a preference without discriminating between one Colony and another.

Mr. Bonar
Law's
Comment

Supposing representations were made by Australia that, as Canada was given some preference upon wheat, Australia should have some preference upon wool, what was the difficulty of explaining to Australia that that would be a tax upon raw material, which was exempted by the scientific tariff of every nation in the world. If that was so, surely Australia would recognise that as regards wool, or any other raw material, there was not a case for Colonial Preference.

In the case of Crown Colonies existing taxes might be so modified as to give preferences, but here again they were up against the principles which prevented the Government from even entertaining the demand. The Prime Minister had told the last Imperial Conference that this meant that "we should treat the foreigner and the Colonies as it were differently," and that the Government "were not able to do." Was there ever so lamentable a conclusion as that we should not treat foreigners and our own kinsfolk differently in fiscal matters? The Government were heavily hammered throughout the debate, which we trust will be freely circulated among the constituencies. In this case it

was not proposed to introduce preferences by new duties or by increased duties, but simply by a lower duty on the Imperial supply of an article of popular consumption which ex hypothesi would diminish its cost. Cabinet Ministers wisely absented themselves and left minor mandarins to struggle with the Opposition, and the arguments to which the Treasury Bench and the faithful Mr. Barnes were reduced would make entertaining reading had we space to reproduce them. Mr. Bonar Law as always contributed an admirable speech, on the general question of preference, upon which the Colonies had shown unanimity ever since the first Conference of 1887, and practically the same resolution had been continuously put forward in this form: "We the Prime Ministers of these Colonies will urge our Dominions to give Preference to the United Kingdom, and in return we urge the United Kingdom to give a preference to us on any duties which now exist, or on any duties which may be subsequently imposed." That was a demand it should be difficult for any Government to resist. The present Government had two alternatives: they could not, of course, say that they not only sympathised but agreed to give a preference, not only on existing duties, but as far as they could without injury to our own people, they would adjust taxation in order to give the highest amount of preference in return for that which the Colonies had given in exchange. The Government could not have done that, but they could have said :

We see that you, the representatives of these Dominions, are urging us to give a preference on existing duties; they are very small, and the concession would not do you any good; we believe the whole thing to be economically unsound, but we shall show that we have sympathy with you; we will meet you where we can without injuring our own people.

The other alternative would have been to tell the Colonial Prime Ministers, "We will slam, bolt, and bar the door against Colonial Preference." As Mr. Bonar Law caustically observed, "the first would have been the policy of statesmen, the second was the policy of the Government "-in fact, the whole position of the Government was that they refused to treat British Dominions. better than foreign countries, and if the people of England only realised that such was their policy, Ministers would not remain a day longer on those benches. Mr. Hope's motion was only rejected by the narrow majority of 43 (188 to 145). We are spared

the necessity of dealing with the rubbish which has appeared in the Radical Press on the subject of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's tour in Western Canada because it is disposed of in Mr. Osborn's excellent article. We cannot however refrain from reproducing Cobden's celebrated observation on the value of Free Trade as a dissolvent of Empire because t exactly expresses the views of our Cobdenite and Cocoa contemporaries who, like Cobden, are "agin" Preference because they are "agin" the Empire. "The colonial system with all its dazzling appeals to the passions of the people, can never be got rid of except by the indirect process of Free Trade, which will gradually and imperceptibly loose the bands which unite our colonies to us by a mistaken notion of self-interest" (Cobden to Henry Ashworth, April 12, 1842).

AMONG the closing incidents of the Session which was adjourned on August 3 until November 15, we may note the speech on the Indian Budget by Mr. Montagu (Under Sec

India

retary for India), parts of which were excellent, especially those in which he trounced Radicals of the Mackarness type-a castigation since repeated on the platform. It is regrettable, however, that an able, promising and plucky politician, like Mr. Montagu, who confronts Cant and Cocoa, should consent to repeat the optimistic assurances which have formed the stock-in-trade of our Indian policy for several years. Mr, Montagu's assurances, which were doubtless put into his mouth by that centre of misinformation and megalomania, the India Office, were startlingly belied almost as soon as uttered by grave manifestations of sedition in different centres of disaffection in India, and the detection of a dangerous conspiracy long in progress and known to the police. The bureaucracy of Whitehall, whose knowledge of India is never up to date, could not employ their holidays better than in reading the remarkable series of letters in the Times on the subject of "Indian Unrest," which are universally praised by every competent person. This serial, which it may be hoped will be re-published in volume form, is acknowledged to be one of the greatest contributions to higher journalism in our day, and constitutes the most searching and instructive study of Indian problems which has yet appeared.

VOL. LVI

We cannot quote because it is all so good; the thoroughness and moderation of the writer are particularly impressive, as is his conscientious desire to be just, and even generous, in criticising men and actions he disapproves. If the Secretary of State for India, who has never seen India, had a fraction of the firsthand knowledge, marshalled in these articles, he would never have allowed his Under Secretary publicly to disparage the Viceroyalty by describing it as the " agency of the political lodger at the India Office. The Viceroy is the direct representative of the Crown. As his title suggests, he is the deputy Sovereign. He is no man's agent. Lord Morley has, however, worked hard to reduce Lord Minto to a shadow. Another blot on the Morley régime is the hideous job of appointing Mr. Lloyd's private secretary, Mr. Clark, as a member of the Viceroy's Council. A third episode has been explained away without being satisfactory. Our readers will remember the interest, not to say excitement, aroused by the appointment of Mr. Sinha as legal member of the Viceroy's Executive Council, the promotion of a native to the inner Cabinet being keenly canvassed. He has somewhat suddenly announced his resignation, which was not unnaturally attributed to the pressure of fellow Indians, who resented such measures as the renewal of the seditious Meetings Act. But the author of "Indian Unrest" in the Times assures us that Mr. Sinha had for many months made no secret of his intention to resign whenever Lord Minto left India. His resignation "is much to be regretted in the public interest; for his discharge of the duties attaching to his post has gone far to reconcile those who, like myself, had misgivings as to the wisdom of calling any Indian into the Viceroy's Executive Council, and chiefly on the very grounds which have been erroneously suggested as an explanation of Mr. Sinha's resignation." It will be difficult to find a successor with his qualifications, because so few Indians have as fully assimilated the best features of a Western education. There is another moral to be drawn from this episode: "It is the fashion in Radical circles at home to jibe at the bloated' salaries of Indian Government officials. Yet the 'bloated' salary of a Member of Council is not a sufficient attraction for the first Indian appointed to such a post."

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