Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

24 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

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INorth Monmouthshire.

!USK.-

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-Monmouthshire Quarter Sessions.

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0 t LLANGIBBY. I

MONMOUTH.

IPONTYPOOL.I

ITHE DANGER OF FLANNELETTE.…

I URBAN COUNCIL MEETING, I

King and Kaiser.

John Burns' Socialistic Address.

Fire at Portheawl. a

I Earl Russell's Appeal Dismissed.

The Weather.

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I MONMOUTH.----.

! PONTYPOOL.

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South American Troubles.

IAn Ammunition Steamer on…

I NEWPORT.

Ur. E. E. Micholls tlie Adopted…

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

— [Mr Micholls continued from Page 4.] -Did they think this country would be safe in its ieeping 1 He knew that the Government was considered to contain all the talents, all the -wisdom, and all the ability of the whole country. 3ut the simile that had been borrowed from history of calling this A GOVERNMENT OF ALL THE TALENTS I -was a somewhat unhappy one. It was exactly a Ihundred years ago-in January, 1806—when the Government was formed which had come down in history with opprobrium as the Government of all the talents." What happened to it? Fourteen months afterwards-in 1807—this Government .resigned, and he could not help thinking that as history was supposed to repeat itself, it would do so in the present case, and in March, 1907—aye, .and even before then-the present Government of all the talents would cease to exist as igno- miniously. (Cheers). And why? Because the members of it-clever as they might be indi- vidually-were each so determined to carry out his own fad that he would not give in to the rest. (Applause). How could the interests of the Empire be considered safe with a Cabinet that was divided against itself ? (Hear, hear, and cheers). It was made up of the Premier, Mr Bryce, Mr -Morley, the Lord Chancellor, and Mr Lloyd-George, .all professing Home Rule; while Mr Asquith, Mr Haldane, and Sir Edward Grey all professed to be -against Home Rule. Sir Henry Campbell-Banner- -man gloried in being a Little Englander, while at -the same time other members of the Cabinet -declared themselves to be imbued with Imperial :instincts; while some would disestablish the 'Church and make it the first plank in their -platform, others wished to upset the present -:Education Act, and others declared for Local Option. He said that the great difference "between the late Government and the present was that the Unionist party had always shown a desire to build up from below, while the Radical party was WISHFUL TO DESTROY I what was above. (Cheers). They had an example of this in what the Minister of Education said at Bristol the other day. Mr Birrell then fore- shadowed how the present Government was going to upset the Education Act of 1902 That was a good measure. It provided an educational ladder by means of which the poor man's child, like the child of the rich man, could ascend from the very lowest to the very highest rung. It was an Act that had produced harmony where formerly there was confusion, which had co-ordinated the elementary, secondary, technical, and higher education, and when the present strife was over the people of the future would regard it as a great Act of constructive legislation. Had they not an example of this in Newport? Did they not see how the inhabitants benefited by it? (Hear, hear). The Act endeavoured to provide the best education that could be devised by the wit of man and the love of God In his opinion they could not have character without religion, and he would oppose any attempt to upset religious instruction in our voluntary schools. He would do nothing to prevent religious instruction being given in non- provided schools according to the wishes of the parents, so that each parent should know that his child was being instructed in the dogmas and creeds he thought best for his child. (Cheers). He would also resist to his utmost the welfare of the little ones being sacrificed to the exigencies of political warfare; he would resist their being made pawns of a political game, shuttlecocks of party. The new Government had given NO SIGN OF CONSTRUCTIVE LEGISLATION. He had a scheme, and might he say that his chief object in seeking to represent them in Parliament was to be of some benefit to the working classes, and he knew that that was impossible unless he could foreshadow measures which would lead to more employment. With regard to the statement of the Labour party, he never was a member of the Employers' Federation, and, of course, he was not one now. (Cheers). He was for over thirty years engaged in business, living in Lancashire, head partner of a firm founded by his great-grandfather, one hundred and twenty years ago-a firm of bankers and shippers to all parts of the world. The firm had also a large business as cotton spinners, and they thought they could manage their business relations with their working people on their own system. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) He ventured to think that his commercial ex- perience was likely to be of greater assistance to an industrial constituency like the Monmouth Boroughs than the theoretical formulae of economic pedants. (Cheers). Coming to fiscal matters, the speaker said, Epochs arise in the history of every country when the administrative machine requires to be taken to pieces and re-adjusted to the altered necessities and growing demands of the hour. Does not the unhappy state of the unem- ployed show that a policy that was good sixty years ago, when we were almost the only workshop of the world, needs overhauling to-day ? (Hear, hear). Other countries have prospered under a different system, and does it not savour of arrogance, that we, with the comparatively small population of forty millions, surrounded by the 450 :millions of civilised Europe, should consider that we only are absolutely right in OUR FISCAL SYSTEM j and all the others irretrievably wrong 1 (Cheers). The Radical party would have you believe that they are right and all the rest of the world wrong. They remind me of the unhappy lunatic who looked from his window upon the thousands of people passing underneath and thanked God that he was the only one who was sane; and of the juryman, who differed from the other eleven, who said, with a tone of pity, that he never in his life met such a set of obstinate men." (Laughter and cheers). He (the speaker) had been a Free Trader all his life, but he would have them realise that we had not got Free Trade in this country. He was not a free importer of manufactured goods which could be made equally as well here. If every other nation would trade as freely as we traded with them, and opened their ports to us as we freely opened our ports to them, that was Free Trade, and he would welcome it. Our Free Trade was not reciprocated. We were being treated to unfair trade of the very worst description. (Cheers). He did not mind being called a Protectionist if it was clearly understood that he desired to protect the labour of British working men, not that of our foreign rivals. What he wanted to see was Protection against Protection. No skill on the part of our working men, no enterprise on the part of our manufacturers, could stand against duties which varied from 20 to 100 per cent. He would tax the £ 140,00u,000 of imports of manufactures according to circum- stances, hoping thereby to induce foreign nations to reduce their tariffs. He would in no case tax raw materials, but only those manufactured articles which we could equally well produce ourselves. "But," he added, "there is still a greater problem, that is to obtain-which is Mr Chamberlain's ideal and mine- IMPERIAL FREE TRADE throughout our Empire. I ask you by your votes to show that you want a conference summoned between ourselves and our brothers over the seas, so that we may see whether by preference or some other means a method cannot be devised whereby we can increase the ties that bind us together. That conference must be an unmuzzled conference —without any restraints whatsoever. I would have you realise the immense danger the Empire runs if you entrust the present Government with your votes at the coming election. As you know, they would impose conditions upon such a con- ference, and the conditions they would impose would endanger the unity of the Empire. Do you consider it, as the present Premier has called it, a sordid bond' to bring within the sphere of practical politics the realisation of the great ideal of Imperial Free Trade throughout an Empire which contains one-third of the inhabitants of the civilised world 7 (Hear, hear). I feel that just as England was a gainer by Napoleon's policy a hundred years ago, so England may become stronger and learn a lesson from the fiscal policy of our foreign rivals to-day. Are we less daring 7 Are we less enterprising than onr ancestors? ('No,' and cheers). Can we not show our foreign rivals that we can be as independent of them as was England a hundred years ago ? Is it not an ideal worth striving for ? Does it not appeal to our imaginations, to the imaginations of the working classes—who are always Imperial-that we should make this effort to obtain this Imperial Free Trade, this Customs Union or Zollverein, throughout the Empire, a system that has done so much for our foreign rivals and added so much to the happiness and prosperity of their people ? Let us try to do this on a far grander scale, and thus renew the strength of this great Empire of ours, the greatest civilising factor in history, one of the most potent for good, the most freedom-loving Empire the world has ever seen." (Cheers). On resuming his seat Mr Micholls was accorded an ovation for his masterly speech, and Mr T. B. R. Wilson then moved a vote of confidence in the candidate, and a pledge of loyal support, which was seconded by Mr J. W. Hunt, and supported by SIR JOSEPH LAWRENCE, M.P., I who said he liked the ring about Mr Micholls' speech. It was a fighting speech. He never doubted that Mr Micholls was sound on the tariff question, but he was now quite satisfied that he was sound in wind and limb, and that he was going to win on that issue. (Hear, hear). The Prime Minister, in his Dunfermline speech, said that, if they were going to have retaliation, food and raw materials must be taxed, because those countries which were the main offenders in this respect did not export anything else. But the fact was that in 1904-the latest year for which the figures were available-we imported from those very foreign countries, not our Colonies, which had a high tariff, 120 millions sterling worth of wholly or mainly manufactured goods. The proposed abolition of Chinese labour would pave the way to the loss of the Transvaal, and would destroy one of our constitutional principles. Mr Alfred Williams spoke to the resolution because Mr Micholls was a supporter of the Education Act, and Mr John Pope supported it as a working man Tariff Reformer. In reply to I QUESTIONS, which were banded up, Mr Micholls sa;d he would not consent to the further taxation of food, which would make the lot of the working man harder than to-day; he was in favour of the abolition of wayleaves and royalties, so long as existing rights were respected; nationalisation of land was an impossibility he looked upon Chinese labour as a regrettable temporary necessity, but, as showing that it had not displaced white labour, 6,001) skilled white men, earning C5,000,000 a year in wages, had secured employment as the result of the introduction of that labour. (Hear, hear.) The vote of confidence was carried by a very large majority. On the proposition of Mr Micholls, seconded by Mr T. Parry, the Chairman was heartfly thanked. In reply his lordship said that if any people in the meeting had pinned ,their faith to the new Government doing away with the House of Lords they would be sadly disappointed, as the Govern- ment had not been in office five minutes before they created seven new peers, and he would not be surprised when they turned up in the House of Lords if they sat on the Conservative side. (Laughter.) The meeting closed with the National Anthem, and cheers for the candidate and Mrs Micholls.