SALE OF HONOURS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 222, 19 September 1929, Page 7

SALE OF HONOURS.

LONDON, Sopteinber 12. "It is difficult to trace any instance of Royal patronage so misdirected as the clumsy batch of honours on the Sovereign near the close of the regime of the Lloyd George Coalition Government." This is the conclusion of Sir. George Arthur, private secretary to the late Earl Kitchener, stated in his book, "The Life of the King," which Messrs. Jonathan Cape are publishing. He describes Mr. Lloyd George's recommendations for honours as an unhappy occasion, suggesting that the Crown's reliance on the advice of even the most responsible Minister should I ha ve limitations. i "A murmur could not be repressed," he writes, "when a personally estimable furniture dealer, the conduct of whose business had not been too successful for the original shareholders, was to enjoy [the same rank as general officers who led large armies to victory." "Of a second nominee," Sir George Arthur writes, "it was stated that lie gave evidence- before the Income-tax Commissioner that in the middle of the war he transferred himself and his business, capitalised at £20,000,000, to a domicile abroad in order to escape taxation. A third nominee admitted dealings with the enemy in wartime, though within official knowledge. In the caso of a fourth nominee the election was so bizarre that eventually Lord Birkenhead solved the difficulty by producing a letter in which Sir Joseph Robinson, the South African gold magnate, declined a peerage. It is understood the letter was not secured without difficulty, as Sir Joseph Robinson, being deaf, was for some time unable to gather whether the question concerned the increasing of the amount already deposited or the renouncing of the honour and the rccovcr* |ing of the cheque"