IMPERIAL POLITICS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2686, 16 December 1909, Page 5

IMPERIAL POLITICS.

THE NAVAL ISSUE

'United Pkess Association— CopyuicuiT. LONDON, Dec. 14. The Northumberland miners’ ballot resulted in 13,374 being for and 11,697 .against a proposal to compel Messrs. Burt and Fenwick to sign the Labor party’s constitution. The vote proves a •sharp division of opinion. Lord George Hamilton, Lord Cromer, and others, on behalf of the Unionist Freetrade Club, declared that it was -undesirable to recommend members how to vote, but they should inform the ♦candidate for whom they were voting. They strongly opposed protection and Home Rule. Mr. Blatchford’s articles on the German preparations are attracting attention, preventing the naval (problem being swamped by the discussion of the Budget and the House of Lords. The “Vossisclie Zeitung,” a- Berlin paper, protests against “insane articles on the eve of an election which will decide whether peaceable freetrade Liberals or warlike protective tariff Conservatives shall rule.” Mr. Lyttelton,, speaking at Slough, . said that if it was true that within a -decade Britain’s supremacy of the seas would be greatly menaced, if not ac--vtually attacked, the fact should . strengthen the desire to “buttress our '■little State with the rising strength of . the young nations oversea.” A DUKE’S PROTEST. (Received December 15, 11.55 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 15. Representative Peers continue ad--dressing meetings daily. Fifty further ..meetings are arranged for before the issue of the writs. The Duke of Norfolk, speaking at "Taunton, protested against the Radical newspapers continually harping upon the immense wealth of the Peers. He jsaid: “They credit me with a colossal income, which exists only in the writer’s imagination.” The Lords, he :said, were accused of constantly rejecting Bills, but in the last four ses- . sions 500 Bills became law and many of these were vastly improved by the Lords. ' THE NAVY—LIBERAL OPTIMISTS. Dr. MaeNamara (Under-Secretary of the Local Government Board), at Cheltenham, explained that Mr. Asquith <did not mention the navy in his recent Albert Hall speech for the simple reason that the navy was'all right. Sir Edward Grey, at Wooller, dedared that the navy should be maintained at a standard equal to any com- * bination. against it. ’ THE LORDS AND FINANCE BILLS. Lord Faber, addressing business men at Bradford, said that if the Lords were not allowed to touch money Bills it would mean a single Chamber, be--•cause Home Rule, education, and similar questions could be dealt with as finance measures. It was unsound finance to “Budget” beyond the needs «of the year. Capital was migrating, partly because Argentine and United States investments paid better. •Sir A. F. Asland Hood (Conservative member for Wellington, Somerset), -at Oxford, said that Mr. Asquith’s offers of a promise to each section of the party were dishonest, vote-catching ’ bribes. A CONSERVATIVE M,P. ON HOME RULE. Mr. "Walter Long (Conservative member for Dublin South), at Pem- • broke Dock, said that a million and ahalf Royalists in Ireland were determined to strenuously oppose Home Rule. If Britain plunged . into this ••controversy what would become of Mr. Asquith’s social programme ? The country -would be blind unless it realised that the Nationalists’: aim was . separation.