The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1910-02-25
KING EDWARD WORRIED.
Would Have Preferred Humping
Majority Either Way.

Majority Either Way
London, Feb. 2O.-Probably there i
no more worried man in England to-day
than King Edward, and no one whe
knows the situation in which be findi
himself can deny that he has ample
cause for worry. Things have not been
going right with him at all and he is
really in most difficult position
To begin with, there is the result Of
the election The king was very angry
at the lords when they threw out the
budget some months ago and so precip-
itated constitutional crisis. Edward,
who is a very sensible man, has laid
down for himself the rule that he must
never betray in the slightest degree any
prediction he may have in secret for
one or the other Of the great English
political parties. His theory is that he
is king of the whole English people and
not Of any faction. For that reason he
has always RETAINED sedulously from
mixing in home politics, while he has
at the same time taken keen interest
and very active part in foreign affairs.
Now. however, it begins to look as if
he would have to take hand in home
affairs, and what displeases him most
about this is that the country has given
him no decided lead The two great
parties in the State, excluding for the
moment the Irish Nationalist and the
Labor party, have come back just about
equal. Edward would have preferred
greatly to see either party in an over
whelming majority. 1t would not have
mattered to him which party won, SO
long as the preponderance was great
enough, for then he could have taken
the position that the people had shown
him clearly what they wanted.
The reason he is compelled to make
the choice now is the fact that one Of
the great questions on which the cleo
ton turned is the position OF the house
of lords and the final word in regard to
its future rests with the king. Only he
can effectively clip their wings, and he
must make the choice within a few
weeks. If Prime Minister Asquith de-
mands from him guarantee that he
will create enough new peers to swamp
the present house and create Liberal
majority to make it commit suicide,
and he refuses he will be faced at once
with an outcry from all the Liberals and
Radicals in the country-and apparent
ly they are about half the population
that he is supporting the aristocracy and
the landed and moneyed interests
against the common people. IL he does
what Asquith asks then he will have to
face an equally loud outcry from the
other half Of his people that he is sup
porting the party that would ruin the
empire, against the sober sense and
backbone OF his kingdom. Was ever a
poor king, who wanted to remain pop
llar and do the right thing by his peo-
pie, in such fix?
About the only way to prophesy what
The king will do in this extraordinary
is to get on the inside Of Lord
Rosebery's mind, for am told by one
who is very close to the court that the
is becoming more and more
lnder the influence of this brilliant
nan, who was once Liberal prime min
ster Of England, but who now belongs
o no party. Lord Rosebery is essen
tally moderate man and his tendency
II any situation of difficulty is to seek
! compromise. Perhaps he may find
way by which the king may satisfy both