SIR JOHN GORST.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12388, 8 December 1909, Page 5

SIR JOHN GORST.

INVITED TO CONTEST THE LIBER-

AL SEAT AT PRESTON

(From Our London Correspondent.)

It was officially announced art Preston on Monday that Sir John Eldon G.orst had accepted an invitation to address the Preston Liberal Association with a view to his adoption as Liberal candidate at the f ortlicomin.o" general election in place of Mr Harold Cox. M.P., who, however, will stand as an Independent Freetrade candidate.

Sir John, who is a native of Preston, where he was born in 1835, was educated, at the local Grammar School. After ■'undertaking the duties of Civil Commissioner in New Zealand he was elected for Cambridge University in 1866, and sat until 1868, and entered Parliament again nine years later as Conservative member for Chatham. In 1886 ho became Under-Secretary for India, and five years later Secretary to the -Treas-. ury.' From 1895 to 1902 ha was vicePresident of the Councils He takes a deep interest in labour and educational problems, and has made the child ques^ tion his special study. His sympathies have always been democratic, and ho endeavoured, when annointed first British delegatel at the Labour Conference summoned by the German Emperor at Berlin, to tie^ond the efforts cf the Kaiser for the amelioration of the conditions of the toilers of Europe. He is just now delivering a scries of addresses in Scotland oil the reports cf the Poor Law Commission.

In the beyinirno; of this month Sir John ?p°Ue at Crinpen'''am in supnort <-.f tl'o Budget. He said the House of Lord had never ventured to either reject or amend the proposals of the Commons with regard to finance. "It is a curioul; thing!/' he said, ''that '■ this unbroken practice should be .ittn^kprl by the constitutional party. I think my old master io Constitutional practice. Mr Disraeli, must hv inclined to turn in his {"vivr when he ?;©'"' a man. one time a Radical, now a Conservative, F+retrl'in<T l'oi-th his ha"d to destroy the constitutional position. If the Lord« accept Mr Chamberlain's counsel, them will be nrec-initnted the most' tremendous crisis, and the most tremendous difficulty in the Government and constitution of this country. What arrangement could be made to refund the taxes already and now beinpe collected would be for the experienced officials at the Treastiry to say. but as one time Under-Secretary of the Treasury, I, for my part, do not see any way out of that difficulty."