NEW‘LABOUR PEERS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 84, 3 January 1930, Page 8

NEW‘LABOUR PEERS

Prior to the publication of the New Year Honours List, the British House of Lords included twelve Labour peers. Some were hereditary peers who had experienced a change of political sentiment; others were created either by the first MacDonald Ministry, or secured their elevation on the second return of that Government to power. There have now been added Major Dudley Aman, Labour’s unsuccessful nominee for the Faversham seat at the general election, and Sir Arthur Ponsonby, who held an important Under-Secretary-ship in the first Labour Government, and is now Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport. With but fourteen supporters in a total House of 740, it cannot be said that the Labour Party has been immoderate in its bestowal of peerages. The Labour Party is in a somewhat delicate position on this' question. In principle it is opposed to the creation of hereditary peers, and could only justify a departure from principle on the ground that it was expedient to 'have certain important State Departments represented in the Upper House as well as in the Lower, and there was no other way of doing it. Apart from the peers, the Honours List for the United Kingdom contains the usual awards for service in the Navy and Army, the' diplomatic Corps, the Colonial ’Office, and the Civil Departments. It is pleasing to note that a knighthood has been bestowed on that representative and distinguished musician and composer, Professor Granville Bantock. New Zealand will be interested in the honouring of Miss Maude Royden, the celebrated woman preacher who visited this country in the course of a world tour, and of the Rt. Hon. Srinvasi Sastri, a distinguished member of the Indian race, who has rendered valuable service to his native country, and, incidentally, to the Empire. When in New Zealand some six or seven years ago, he interested himself officially in the removal of the disabilities of Indians lawfully domiciled in the Dominion.