The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1909. BRITAIN’S ELECTION CAMPAIGN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2684, 14 December 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1909. BRITAIN’S ELECTION CAMPAIGN.

The election campaign in England has progressed sufficiently to indicate with some clearness the issues that are being emphasised by the contending parties. It is now. evident that the Prime Minister is anxious to choose a better fighting base than is provided in 'the debatable proposals of the Budget, and is making the fight a straight-out contest against the House of Lords. To quote his own words at the Albert Hall: “I tell you plainly; I tell my countrymen outside, neither I nor any other Liberal Minister is going to submit again to the rebuffs and humiliations of the past four year. Just wliat lie intends to do with the Lords if given a mandate from the .people is not clear, but his main idea seems to centre round the demand that “the Lords’ veto must go.’’ In all jirobability the- result will justify Mr Asquith’s tactics, for opposed to-his Budget proposals are the tariff reformers, who claim that a policy of protection will bring to the nation all the revenue that Mr Asquith is seeking to extract from the landlords, and at the same time will promote manufacturing industries. It is well enough for Mr Asquith to deride the tariffites as those seeking to tax the food of the workers, hut the recent depression that Britain has been passing through has tended to increase discontent amongst the masses and has made them all the more ready to listen to the promises of brisk trade and steady work that are made by Mr Balfour and his party. The more, therefore, that Mr Asquith can detract from the attention given to the Tariff issue the better his chances of success at the polls. On the direct question of how to raise the money required for Britain’s navy it is quite possible he might be defeated, but so long as the Commons against the Lords can be made to appear as the chief issue his prospects of winning are greatly improved. Popular opinion on this subject is so strong that even Mr Balfour and even a section of the Lords themselves agree that a reform of the Upper House is urgently necessary. A significant feature of the campaign is the fact that Mr Asquith has given an unequivocal pledge in favor of Home Rule for Ireland. This will give him the support of the Irish Nationalist party, but its effect on the English voters must be highly problematical. The question is not intense to the degree that it once was and a large section of the people will probably he prepared to consider it in. a much more calm and unimpassioned mariner than would Lave been the case ten or even -’five years ago. Still the embers of the old flames will .still be alive and the Home Rule issue, .even if somewhat obscured i>y other importarit ones of modern origin, may yet shake the country, from end to end. On the electoral issue Mr. Asquith is evidently desirous of making friends with the Suffragettes, and has added Franchise reform to his planks of policy. The Opposition,, led by Mr Balfour, will attempt to justify the Lords in rejecting the Budget, but mainly do they rely upon the stimulat

ing/effeets of Tariff Reform to .beat their oppbnehts'in the contest for public support. The Unionist leader claims that the effect of the Liberal party’s financial schemes has been to drive British capital abroad for investment in' foreign securities, whereas the security given by a protective tariff would result in the money being employed in promoting manufactures in England. His scheme provides for colonial preference, and is officially made the first plank in the Unionist platform. The elections are fixed to take place early in the New Year, and it is evident from, the foregoing that the people of England are/ politically speaking, in for stirring times.