GERMANY AND BRITAIN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2705, 8 January 1910, Page 5

GERMANY AND BRITAIN.

I CABLE NEWS.

WAR DECLARED TO BE INEVIT-

ABLE.

AIR. BALFOUR MAKES SENSATIONAL SPEECH.

UnITKD PnICBS AHBvrniATtON Copyright LONDON, Jan. 6.

Air. Balfour, leader of the Opposition speaking at Hanley, said that statesmen and diplomatists of the lesser Powers unanimously state that a struggle between Germany and Britain is evitable. “I don’t agree with them,” he said, “but they think that we are not alive to’a sense of the responsibilities and are therefore predestined to succumb. This depreciation of British virility has gone so. far that non-official Germans, men of position and character engaged im great - affairs, have actually the audacity to say: ‘Do you suppose wc should every allow Britain to adopt tariff reform?’ It is undesirable to press irresponsible conversations too far, but such audacity as to say that Britain should not settle its taxation according to its own ideas makes my blood boil. Tariff reform, reasonably carried out, will greatly increase esmployment.” He believed in it from the point of view of the inhabitants of this island. The antiquated rules and prejudices of our grandfathers unfitted us for the competition of the present age, which requires a reasonable system of tariffs.

GERMAN OPINIONS.

BERLIN, Jan. 6

Mr. Balfour’s speech is atracting universal attention in Germany. Several leading organs deprecate its sensational tone, and state they are sorry Mr. Balfour could not bring himself to disclose the names of the Germans using threats.

These newspapers declare that every intelligent German knows that Air. Chamberlain’s tariff reform scheme is purely a question of British internal politics. The “Kreuz Zeitung” declares that the overwhelming majority of the steady going industrious German nation will be able to accommodate themselves eventually to British tariff reform with equanimity.

BRITISH NAVY STILL SUPREME

LONDON, Jan. 6,

Sir Edward Grey, in a speech at North Bedwick, declared that the navy was in a position to protect Britain from any probable combination of fleets.

- REPLY BY MR ASQUITH. AN OPTIMISTIC UTTERANCE. (Received January 7, 11.25 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 7. Mr. Asquith, at Bath, criticised Mr Balfour’s Hanley speech a s advertising fears and apprehensions' without making himself directly responsible for them. If Mr. Balfour did not agree with the opinion of the statesmen of lesser Powers, why quote them? Mr. Asquith said that he unhesitatingly affirmed that there is no such unanimity as alleged, and that there was not a single Power, small or great, which was shaping its policy or basing its calculations upon the assumption that war between Britain and Germany was inevitable, or even probable. Mr. Asquith added: “Nor can I discern, in any quarter of the horizon, any cause of quarrel, direct or indirect, between us and that great friendly nation.” After ridiculing Mr. Balfour’s reference to unnamed Germans, Mr Asquith asked why should public opinion, which in the two countries is striving strenuously and genuinely to promote a- better understanding, he wantonly inflamed and embittered by an advertisement from the lips of an eminent statesman of the silly menaces which whether jocular or serious, were unworthy of a moment’s notice. The scare was intended to enable Air. Balfour’s followers, amid the gusts and cross-currents of the election, to get into port. (Received Janpary 7, 11.35 p.m.) Mr. Asquith continued: The real facts were that the Government had taken prompt and effective steps to -meet the new situation arising from the facilities existing abroad, particularly in Germany, for hastening naval construction. We had added to the estimates and 1 expenditure, and it will mean a further addition next year. If by the phrase—the superiority of our own seas was threatened—Mr. Balfour meant imperilled or endangered, he (Mr. Asquith) would give the statement a flat and absolute contradiction. He asserted that for this year and the year after the steps taken in regard to naval construction and equipment were such as to ensure to-Britain, on the seas, the unassailable superiority which depends not only on the number and armament of ships, but almost equally on their proper organisation and distribution. We were more secure for the defence of the shores concerned than at a ny time in the memory of living men. Regarding tariffs, he challenged Air. Balfour to state whether colonial preference could mean for practical purposes any ting but, taxation of food. Mr. Balfour, he said, had not yet made any statement on that point, but must do so sooner or later. The meeting resolved to support Mr -Asquith in’ finally establishing, in all matters of national’ policy, that the will of the people, as expressed through the House of Commons, shall prevail.