THE POET LAUREATE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 50, Issue 163, 23 April 1930, Page 5

THE POET LAUREATE.

FILLING THE VACANCY. FIVE NAMES ARE MENTIONED. (United Press Association—Copyright.) (Received This Day, 11.15 a.m.) LONDON, April 22. There is some speculation about Mr Ramsay MacDonald's choice of the new Poet Laureate. The names of Sir William Watson, Mr Rudyard Kipling, Sir John Drinkwater, Mr Alfrey Nowes and Mr John Masefield have been mentioned. Out of these, Mr Kipling would have the heartiest support of millions who do not read poetry as a-habit, but who love his vigorous ballads. Sir John Drinkwater's youth may be against him. Mr Masefield is the most talented next to Air Kipling, but critics hold that his work lacks dignity. Sir Alfred Nowes has practically all the qualifications, except age. The "Daily Express" hopes that the post will remain vacant. "Why saddle the country with a laughing-stock of a public poet as though poetry were a form of activity to be supervised, guarded, turned on and turned off by the Lord Chamberlain's Office of Works?" In certain quarters the claims of a railway porter, Mr Henry Chappell, the author of tlie. remarkable war-time poem, "The Day," are seriously advanced, "in view of the present democratic times."