OVERWORKED PREMIERS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1188, 25 July 1911, Page 7

OVERWORKED PREMIERS.

SEVENTEEN HOCKS A DAY IN LONDON. Tho oversea Premiers visiting London for tno Imperial Conference nnd the Coronation (says tho "Daily Mail" of .lime 13) are. haying a .working day that, on an average, lasts .seventeen hours. Tno west wing of the Hotel Cecii, where the Premiers are staying as tho guests of the Colonial Office, hums with activity. Adjoining (heir, suites .of rooms each Premier has one apartment set aside as an office, where, under the vigilant eye of the private secretaries, two or more clerks arc busy all day. On the ground door a largo general office, open from I) a.m. to midnight, directs Hie groups of callers, sorts the letters aud telegrams,- aud supplies nil information to, from, and about the Premiers and their stuffs. Ten large motor-cars, provided for the Premiers' use, are stationed in the courtyard. Tho private secretary to the Hon. A. Fisher, the Australian Premier, explained yesterday (continues the paper) that his office had been so busy that, practically all of London he had time to see. during bis three weeks' residence was the road between the hotel and Whitehall, and the hotel and the office of the High Commissioner for Australia. He began work directly after breakfast, an:) was seldom free by midnight. Besides the official correspondence with the Commonwealth there were vast numbers of social letters In dispatch. Letters arrived for Mr. fisher at tho rate of about 1110 a day, and il was not unusual for thai improvised office to use J.">s. worth of penny stamps in (he course of the day. Mr. Fisher has been made an honorary member of twenty-eight clubs, and it is very much his wish to at least call at all of them. Dining at any of llieni is, be fears, out of the fpieslion. -Air. Fisher's case is typical of thai, of all the Premiers, who ore bavin l : ooe of the most nlensant. and also quite Ihe most exuding, days of their career.