PERSONAL NOTES FROM HOME.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18265, 26 December 1924, Page 3

PERSONAL NOTES FROM HOME.

(niOU OUR OWN COXKSrONDENT.)

LONDON, November IS. On their return to London, after a year's visit to New Zealand and Australia, Lord and Lady Strathspey were entertained at luncheon l>y the Australian Natives' Association, Mr G. S. Amos (Wellington) being in the chair. Lord Strathspey, in the course of his remarks later, thought that theJLabour Party had done an incalculable amount of good. It was a good thing for England that the Labour Government had come into existence, because it had been the means of pulling the Conservative Party together. He believed that the Conservative Party was destined to kill the "Little Englander" movement. Referring to the House of Lords, he thought it should be.an Empire House. To the suggestion of a speaker that Lord Strathspey should go to the House of Lords in his kilt, attended by a piper, the latter said if he did he would not be allowed in. Once he had gone to the House of Lords in a grey suit, and he was not permitted to take his seat. The orthodox dress for the Upper Chamber was black.

Dr. E. S. Aitken, the latest New Zealand Rhodes Scholar, went to Oxford at tho beginning of the Michaelmas term, and is in residence at Balliol College. It is* his intention to do bio-chemical research work in the Department of Physiology during his three years' tenure of the Rhodes Scholarship. , Dr. Aitken, who belongs to Gisborne, was house surgeon in Duncdin Hospital for some months before coming ,to England.

Mr William Soltau Davidson, of Eglinton crescent, Edinburgh, and of Lcuchie, North Berwick, for over 40 years general manager and a director of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, Limited, a director of the National Bank of Scotland, Limited, of the National Mortgage and Agency Company of New Zealand, Limited, and of the Scottish Union and National Insurance Company, who died on July 17th, aged 78, left personal estate in Great Britain valued for probate at £253,819, of which his interests in the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, Limited, are valued at £52,284. Mr Davidson was a cousin of the Archbishop of Canterbury. There was a keen contest in the inter-Collegiate competition between Gonville and Cains and Magdalene College, in the Cambridge athletic sports, the latter winning by 55 points to 53. V. B. V. Powell (Cains) won the long jump, 20ft 11 Mn. He was second in the 220 yds low hurdles —this, was won by Lord Burghley —and he was second in tho 150 yds.

Tbc "semi-final heats of the Freshmen's fours at Oxford -were rowed off under favourable conditions. In the first heat Christ Chirrch beat Oriel by over four lengths. A New Zealander in the Oriel boat was G. C. Gibbs (Christ's College).