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Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 170, 21 July 1941, Page 8

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SEVERAL POSITIONS

New Informa f ?on Minister

Appoinfcei

British Officii! 1 W'.rnlfss. (Rec. 2.30 p.m.) RUGBY, July 20. Important changes in the British Government are announced from 10, Downing Street. Mr. Brendan Bracken, Parliamentary Secretary to the l'rime Minister, becomes Minister of Information, in place of Mr. A. Duff-Cooper, who becomes Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Mr. R. A Butler, Foreign Affairs Under-Secretary, become? Pre: id :,nt of the Board of Education. icpJacing Mr. H. Flam.-hotham. who becomes chairman of the Unemployment Assistance Board, arid is made a Peer. Lord Hankey, who was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, becomes Paymaster-General. Mr, R. K. Law, Financial Secretary to the War Oflice, becomes Foreign Affairs Under-Secretary, and is succeeded by Mr. Duncan Sandys, Mr. Churchill's son-in-law. A Labour member, Mr. Ernest Thurtle, becomes Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Information, replacing Mr. Harold Nicholson, who is appointed a governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Sir Hugh Sealye becomes an additional Air Under-Secretary ; Mr. Duff Cooper is proceeding to the Far East, charged with the ta-ik of examining, on behalf of the War Cabinet, the present arrangements I for consultation and coordination 1 between the various British authorities, military, administrative and political, in those regions, and reporting to them on how these arrangements can be made more effective. Lord Hankey, as PaymasterGeneral, will continue to perform the special duties now assigned to him, which include the chairmanship of a number of War Cabinet Committees. Captain Harold Balfour, Air UnderSecretary, Mr. Tom William, joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, and Major | Lloyd George, Parliamentary Sccrc- • tary to the Minister of Food, become I Privy Councillors. j Mr. Brendan Bracken, aged 40, Conservative M.P. for Paddington since 1029, ■was Parliamentary Secretary to Mr. Churchill. He is an "old 'boy" of Sydney Grammar School and finished 'his education at Sedbergh. After leaving school he went straight into the publishing busi- , ness and at 'M became director of Eyre : and Spottiswoode, Limited, of London, ' bhe Kind's printers. He is editor of the > "Banker ' and also managing-director of the "Economist." Mr. Duncan Sandys, Conservative member for bhe Norwood Division of Lambeth for the .past six years, married Mr. Churchill's daughter Diana, in 1035. He entered the diplomatic service in 1930 when he was appointed to tfae British Bmibassy in Berlin. He was attached to the United Kingdom delegation to the Reparations Conference in 1932. He wan later tramsferred to the Foreign Office and attached to the World Economic Conference, London, 1933. Mr. Sandys -was the central figure in a dramatic House of Coraraous incident when, booaus-e of allegations he made, be w<as threatened by the Attorney-General ■with proceedings under the Official Secrets Act. unless be divulged the source of his information regarding tihe supp'ies of anti-aircraft guns. The information had 'been sent to Mr. Hore-Belisha, then Secretary of War.