The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-07-01
EXPOSED BY AMERICAN
English Hospital Scandal I'm
covered by Burdett-CouttS.
SCENE is DRAMATIC
ATTACK AND DEFENSE IN PAR
LAMENT Is MEMORABLE.

Copyright, 1900 by the Associated Press)
London, June 30.-The spectacle of a
man of American birth. William l. Ash
vative member for Westminster. stand
ing in the house of commons amid a
storm of jeers and cries, and exposing
TO the world the horrors and abuses
that followed in the wake of the Brit
ish victories proved as dramatic as it
was unprecedented
For over an hour Coutts, known as
the young husband of the millionaire
baroness" but now growing gray with
his fifty years, his face bronzed bv
the sun of South Africa, and his hands
clenched nervously behind him, com
manded the attention of the hostile
majority of the house and drew a sue
cesslon of CHASTITY pictures that in
grewsomeness- of detail eclipsed the
horrors OF the Crimean war.
The task was terribly difficult. Mr..
Burdett-Coutts has seldom spoken in
parliament, and never before at such
length or with the whole nation wait
ing 10 hear what he had TO saw.
he is nothing Of an orator, and was
Obliged TO present a mass of detail
that now and then grew tedious. New
ertheless, he held his audience by the
strength and gravity of his statements.
his declaration that every state
ment that l have made is true" was
made with an earnestness that atoned
for all his rhetorical defects.
This terrible arraignment of Great
Britain's care of her wounded, sick
and dying, made Friday night, is by
far the most notable occasion of the
= Of Il
tary secretary of the foreign office.
George Wyndham, which was pre-
sented by Mr.. Burdett-C outts, and
that of the government leaders and the
lord OF the treasury, w. J. Balfour.
that followed IL, were both efforts that
neither man has eQualed this year at
any rate
Government Makes Reply.
The government was awake to the
seriousness of the crisis and with sur
passing oratory Mr.. Wyndham took its
critics behind the scenes of the great
campaign.
In graphic language he described the
enormous difficulties of the commUni-
cations, and exposed for the first time
the daring conception of Lord Roberts
plans and the risks he ran. In short.
without firing his hearers with too
many statistics, the under secretary for
war gave such a fascinating panorama.
lnterJectlng facts to prove that the
war office took all precautions. reiter
ating that war must always be fearful.
that his hearers well nigh forgot the
sick and wounded in their admiration
IN the success of the great general
But this, the Times points out today
all crumbled away before the damn
ing details presented by Mr.. .Burdett-
Coutts, who spoke with the advantage
of having seen whereof he spoke.
Mr.. Balfour. for once, lost his self
control. Flushed and trembling with
passion, he denounced the attacks
which, he declared, merely amounted
TO criticisms of Lord Roberts.
=. Attack Is On Kitchener.
This the opposition denied. and in
point of fact, the whole tenor of Mr..
Burdett-Coutts' speech was an attack
on the methods of Lord Kitchener in
stead of Lord Roberts, though this was
not openly stated
As result of the dramatic debate
public opinion seems fairly evenly d.
vided between two verdicts. First
that the war Office is guilty of Criminal
neglect; second, they reserve all argu-
ments till the parliamentary commit
tee reports.
Mr.. Burdett-Coutts has suddenly he
come one of the most prominent men
OF the hour, and the government has
still to face the agitation which has
stirred the country almost to a. greater
extent than did the declaration of war
itself.