FATE OF THE TREATY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17268, 18 September 1919, Page 7

FATE OF THE TREATY.

SENATE POSTPONES ACTION. DEADLOCK VOTE POSSIBLE. HOPES. OF THE DEMOCRATS. By Telegraph—Press Association— (Received 11 p.m.) A. and N.Z. WASHINGTON. Sept. 16. The Senate has postponed action in regard to the Versailles Treaty until Monday. The Democrats claim that they have sufficient support to create a deadlock vote. Under the Constitution of the United States all treaties submitted by the President must be approved by the Senate by a majority of two-thirds of those present. The Senate rules have no provision for the closure of debate, nor any limitation on the length either of si speech or a debate. It was recently reported that the " Battalion of Death," as the opponents of the Versailles Treaty have been described, design to hold up the ratification of the Treaty until after the dates proposed for the first meetings of the League of Nations and the International Labour Conference. Among the Treaty opponents in the Senate are many famous long-period talkers, including Mr. La Folette, who is described as the " oratorical camel " of the Senate. ATTACK ON THE PRESIDENT SEEKING A THIRD TERM. A. and N.Z. WASHINGTON. Sept. 16. Mr. Sherman, in the Senate debate, said that Mr. Wilson had crowned himself monarch of quitters, unrivalled in the "Western Hemisphere. " His silence and speed when escaping from his imperishable principles of yesterday are as abyssmal and swift as primal chaos," he added. A question before the United States was whether it would exhaust itself making the world safe for some nations or making the United States safe for the American people. Mr. Wilson's hegira from Washington obviously indicated his intention of asking for a third term. No sacrifice evidently was too great to secure the League of Nations, not even the sacrifice of his pledged word. " All must pass under his epithets who will not respond to his flight into the dim world of Wilsonian dreams," concluded Mr. Sherman.