24 MAY 1930, Page 3

Lord Beaverbrook and the Referendum When the breach between Lord

Beaverbrook and Mr.. Baldwin widens that between Lord Beaverbrook and, Lord Rothermere contracts. Lord Beaverbrook- is evidently extremely discontented with his bargain with Mr. Baldwin about the Referendum. We thought at the time. that Mr. Baldwin had the better of that bargain and Lord Beaverbrook, upon reflection, seems to think so too. In a speech at Hastings on Monday he invited Mr. Baldwin to scrap the Referendum. " The Central Office," he said, " appears to me to be using _the Referendum not as a spear with which to fight for Empire Free Trade, but as a shield behind which to shelter itself from this issue of a tax on foreign food- stuffs." The speech also contained a panegyric upon Lord Rothermere. * * * *