ASQUITH ILL

Evening Star, Issue 19790, 14 February 1928, Page 5

ASQUITH ILL

Condition “ Extremely Grave ” Lapse to Unconsciousness The Family Summoned (British Official News.) Frees Association—By Wireless—Copyright. RUGBY, February 13. (Received February 14, at 11.30 a.m.) The Earl of Oxford and Asquith, the Liberal ex-Prime Minister, is seriously ill. A medical bulletin states that yesterday he developed an acute attack of pharyngitis. To-day there are signs of bronchitis, and his condition is “extremely grave.” . LONDON, February 13. (Received February 14, at 12.45 p.m.) Lord Oxford is unconscious, and the family have been summoned.

and Asquith in January, 1925. He is now seventy-six years of ago. He first cam© into prominence in defence of Parnell, who was accused of writing

[Herbert Henry Asquith, the great Liberal Premier of 1903-15 and of the Coalition Government. 1915-10, was raised to the peerage as Earl of Oxford

letters which condoned the Phoenix Park murders. The brilliant barrister caught the eye of Gladstone, and his career, which might have ended on the Pouch, was diverted to poiltics and tlie Liberal cause. “His real success,” says one writer, “ was as a deputyleader of the House of Conimons. He was recognised as a parliamentarian, fully the equal of Lord Balfour himself. His steady attention to business was precisely the control that the House needed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer was Mr David Lloyd George, and no two men have ever been better adapted, each to assist the other. Lord Asquith read print and Mr Lloyd George read persons. Asquith was judicial; Llovd George was constructive. Asquith was lucid; Lloyd George was inspiring. For nine years they lived side by side in Downing street, and together they fought and won two elections. Together they brought the House of Lords to its knees. Together they pensioned the aged, insured the workers against sickness and unemployment, authorised the feeding and medical inspection of children, and confronted the awful disaster into which the militarism of Germany plunged the ancient civilisation of Europe. During Lord-Asquith’s lifetime there had grown up a force that knew not Latin or Greek. It was the popular Press. His policy was to ignore the newspapers, however friendly. Mr Lloyd George’s policy was to cultivate the newspapers, however hostile. And it was over Lord Northcliffe that the two men finally parted company, and that Lloyd George emerged as loader, and the Liberal cause sank to obscurity. J