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GENERAL CABLES.
MR. HUGHES CRITICISED.
{Australian Press Association.)
Mr. J, M. Robertson, Liberal M.P. for
Tyneside, and formerly Parliamentary Sec
retary to £be Board of Trade, speaking at
a dinner at the National Liberal Club," in
London, said that Mr. Hughes (Com
mon wealth Prime Minister) constantly
referred to the economic weapon with
which he' would make Geffnany shorten
the war, but it was extraordinary that he
made no single clear proposition.
"I cannot understand," Mr. Robertson
went on, "how any man who has attained
the Prime Ministership in Australia can
possibly hold such an opinion. Mr. Hughes's
views are really those of the politician out
for a tariff. It is not tactful for the guest
of the Government to go about telling
people who disagreed with-him that they
are agents of Germany: If a British poli
tician similarly lectured Australians, he
would get aplain instruction to mind his
own business, and perhaps he would be
helped to do so.
"Mr Lloyd George described Mr. Hughes
as a great orator, out his dexterity in -not ?
committing himself regarding the_ kind of
. tariff he ? favoured impressed him (Mr.
Robertson) more than his eloquence. When
.Mr. Hughes spoke of millions of tramps
and loafers in. Great Britain he spoke like
a mountebank. If Great Britain adopted
Mr. Hughes's policy it would lead to
financial and commerciaLdestruction."
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