River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1915-12-30
BRITISH CABINET REPORTED
BADLY SPLIT ON THIS PROB
LEM-EALFOUR SUPPORTED
IN OPPOSITION TO PLAN.
LLOYD-GEORGE THREATENS
TO RESIGN IN THE CRISIS
May Become Prime Minister-General
Election Predicted by Newspapers
in observation-disclosures Pa
pers See Possibility Of Sew
eral Cabinet designations.

London, Dec 28.-Conscription may
prove the rock on which the Asquith
ministry will finally be wrecked, the
PRESS intimates.
The cabinet council after what is
described as heated session, ad-
lourned with the conscription question
unsettled.
The cabinet is reported badly split
On this problem. The Daily Mail says
hat Andrew Bonar Law, secretary for
he colonies, and Lord Kitchener, the
war minister, have not definitely align
ed themselves, while A. J. Balfour first
lord Of the admiralty, is supported by
a majority of the ministers in oDpos-
Ing conscription.
But David Lloyd-George, the Msr-
quis of LansdoWne, Earl Curzon, Sir
Frederick Smith, J. Austin Chamber
lain, Walter Hume Long and the Earl
Of SeIbourne advocate immediate COM
pulsion
LIoyd-George May Resign.
Lloyd-George is reported to have
threatened to resign unless Premier
Asquith strictly adheres to his pledge
to apply immediate compulsion to un-
married ''slackers.
A cabinet crisis or a general election
are predicted by most of the news
papers. Iloyd-George is expected to
become prime minister if Asquith's
resignation is forced.
The Morning Post, equally with the
Times and the Daily Mail-all con-
scriptionist papers-sees the POSSIBLE
Ity of several cabinet designations or
the other alternative general cleo
ton.
General Election Likely
The Morning Telegraph and the
Chronicle, anti-compulsion organs,
also are apprehensiye of a crisis or a
general election
The Chronicle editOrially protests
against "intriguers and wire pullers,
who contemplate the desperate and
mad expedieRt Of general election
gamblers plunge, which might en-
tail disastrous consequences" AMI
points out how, by merely withholding
It's assent to the parliament and reg
lstration bills the House of Lords can
make elections unavoidable Rcxt
month, since, in the absence of the
parliament bill, which prolongs it's life
for eight months, the present parlia-
ment would expire by the effluxion Of
time at the end of January.
Not Like LincoIn's Action.
Concerning the people who make
comparison with America during the
Civil war, the Chronicle argues that
Lincoln's action was not a precedent
because conditions were different.
Lincoln was distracted by wholesale
assertions, while recruiting was slim
ulated by extravagant bounties.
The Chronicle adds: Our voluntary
army in one year exceeded in number
all the men recruited by the federal
government in the four years Of the
war and that without drafts to force
them or bounties to bride them
Crisis in Cabinet Near.
The Times asserts that the cabinet
differences on the question of unat-
tested single men point to the exist
ence of fundamental EMERGENCIES re-
garding the method Of prosecuting the
war.
There are certain clements" says
the Times, which can not work to-
gether indefinitely and the cabinet
seems to have reached the point
when it must make a vital decision
between one set of opinions and an
other