FOB INDIA.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18577, 30 December 1925, Page 7

FOB INDIA.

A NEW VICEROY. HON. E. F. L. WOOD APPOINTED. (nox ov& otnr comis*ohdmt.) LONDON, November 6. On all sides approval is expressed tho appointment, of the Rt. Hon. E. F. L. "Wood, M.P., to tho Vice--1 Royalty and Governor-Generalship of India in succession to tho Earl of Reading. This new appointment creates a vaoancv in tho representation ber for tho Ripon Division of the "West liiding. Tho new Viceroy is the lwir and eldest son surviving- of Viscount Halifax, the eminent churchman, and is a remarkablo example of what can be dono in British public life in a decado and a half by dint of talent, patriotism, and energy. Born in 1891, lio was educated at Eton, Christ Church, and All Souls, Oxford, where ho took hid ricgreo of M.A., and attained a Fellowship of his Collego. Ho entered Pailiameut in January, 1910, as member for tho Ripon Division of tho West Hiding of Yorkshire, and has retained the seat ever since. Mr Bonar Law appointed him Parliamentary UnderSecretary for the Colonics in 1921, and in triie following year he bocamo President of tho Board of Education. He was given by Mr Baldwin tho post of Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries in the present Government-, and, us ho told tho Notional Farmers' Union the other day, his policy has boon ono of inculcating "effort and determination on the part of tho industry itself, wisely encouraged by the State," rather than any lino of State ownership or State management. Ono of tho most enterprising Mr Wood has undertaken, however, was -when ho rovived in tho Colonial Offico the precedent of Mr Joseph Chamberlain, and made a tour overseas. Between December, 1921, and tho February of tho following year ho visited tho West Indies and British Guiana. As ho showed subsequently in a valuable White Paper, he and his companions, Mr Ormsby-Goro, M.P.. and Air It. A. Wiseman, of tho Colonial Office, had to omit tho Bahamas and Honduras through want of timo, but they toured the remainder of the islands and groups, and went ninto constitutional as well as economic and other questions. In September, 1922, Mr Wood banded over tb the Leeds Corporation on liberal terms his historio seat of Temple Newsam, the "Hampton Court of the North," together with such pictures and other objects of interost aa -would preserve its character for all time. Temple Newsam was inherited under the will of nn aunt. Mr Wood is tho author of a study of John Keblo, and once collaborated with Sir George Lloyd, the new High Commissioner for Egypt, in a book onlled ''The Great Opportunity."

War Service

Mr Wood had obtained a commission in the Yorkshire Dragoons, and it was in that regiment that he served during the first three years of recent war. Later he commanded his unit and was mentioned in dispatches. In 19X7 Sir Auckland Geddes, then Minister a of National Service, appointed him Assistant Secretary in tliAt Ministry, with the special duty of acting as ohief liaison officer between the Ministry l and other Government Departments.

A Man of Fortune.

Mr Wood is regarded as one of the most efficient of the younger men in the Ministry. His predominant characteristic is that of caution, a aoality so neceasair in a Viceroy. -He Will approach the educational problem in India with the experience and knowledge of an expert. It is oetftblishftd custom for the Viceroy of India to be' raised to the Peerage on taking office if he ia not already a Peer. Mi' Wood will thus beoome daring his father's lifetime. His elevation will form p parallel to that of the late Marquess Currson, who was made an Irish Peer on becoming Viceroy during the lifetime of his father, Lord Scarsdale.

lilked by Pannors.

Mr Wood leaves the Ministry of Agriculture with the question of titlse redemption sbilS unsettled. Fftrffifera resent the idea of l>eing compelled to redeem the tithe rent on a hitiior basis than par. The farmers liked him. He never failed to remind them that he was a farmer and a member of their union. He -understood their grievances, took them* into his confidence, anrl carefully made no promises except that ho would do his host. Ho was pleasantly straight in hard-fought controversy with the farmers' leaders. His many speeches to them breatbod hopefulness, but nothing satisfying in the way or agricultural reform.

A Traditional Whl*.

It is recognised that Mr Baldwin had a difficult task in finding a successor to Lord Reading, whose retard (says the Rt. Hon. T. P. O'Connor) has not yet quite sank into the minds of Ms countrymen at Home; but those who know India agree in the view that, facing a most difficult situation, he baa controlled it with a fine mixture of firmness and consideration. Mr O'Connor describes Mr Wood, as one of the picturesque figures of the House of Commons; he is unusually tall; some inches above six feet, his height alone would make him ebnepicuous; but he has never sought notice himself. On tl>e contrury, everything about him points to a modesty and reserve which, common though these qualities are among his countrymen, are specially noticeablp in him. ... He i# one of the men who bring religion, I should say, to every thought and act of their lives. *

"If I were asked to describe ll* Wood, I should say that he was the most typical of what I regard as the finest type of man—namely, the honest Englishman. Of great family distinction —grandson of a man who was once Secretary for India, and a prominent politician, son of a peer, owner of large estates —in a way he seems to walk out of the eighteenth century, ot to be perhaps a little more accurate, out of the early Victorian days, when the squires—especially on the Liberal Ride —were still the chief personalities in the Government of the country. Though; now he is nominally a Conservative, he would bo more accurately described as a Whig—of the same school as Palmeraton, Graham, and Lord John Russell, or, if we could go back further, of Charles James For, who united the traditions of great birth and a keen regard for popular liberties. If you met Mr Wood at the Arctic Pole, or in tho Antarctic, you would know from the first look at him that he Was an Englishman; his race and hia traditions are written in letters too legible in his face, his figure, and his speech, to be mistaken for anything else. "It is perhaps part of this mental and moral equipment that he is extremely discreet, and, even in private conversation, slow of speech. It is probably becauso he feels so strongly that his word must be his bond that he is careful in committing himself. The picture I have tried to draw of him may suggest a dull seriousness; he is serious, but not in the least dull. He can craek a quiet joke, and, above all, he has a beautiful and almost "boyish smile that lightens up hia faee. He is approachable, with all hia air of cold dignity. ... '

(Continued at foot of aert ootama.)

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