IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 7, 8 July 1922, Page 12

IN THE PUBLIC EYE

SOME INTERESTING PERSONALITIES. "Mr. Lloyd George," writes "A Student," "has been in politics for thirty years, and for nearly fifteen of. them has straddled right across the path, so that no one has been able to get past him either way. There is no career in English politics equal to his in variety and acuteness of interest, none so baffling to a fair judgment, and certainly none that has had so magnificent a stagesetting. In one act, the Empire is in danger, in a second the British Constitution, and in a third'the whole world rocks almost to its fall; twice, the mil- ' lenhium expansively dawns, and there are numerous transformation scenes, with one still to come. An incomparable actor, a spell-binder, a crowd compeller and master of mass-psychology, but hot a builder of stately argument nor a sculptor in words of-ideals of such mental and moral beauty that all who hear must forsake everything else and follow them."'' . ■

Lord Derby recently visited Ireland in the character of " Mr. Edwards." During his stay in Dublin, "Mr. Edwards" was responsible for one action, at least, which impressed witnesses alike with his courage and determination. An appointment was^fixed with an important personage in the Sinn Fein party, and at night a car arrived at the hotel to convey Mr. Edwards to an unknown destination. His clerical companion prepared to accompany him; but the chauffeur forbade this. His instructions were to drive " Mr. EdVaxds " and nobody else. The grave risk was pointed out to "Mr. Ed- I ! wards," .who, however, brushed the consideration aside and departed. He returned safely, and to. the relief, of those.| aware of the circumstances, just before curfew.. ■ . . , I Dr. C A. H. Green, who has been elected first Bishop of the- new Diocese of Monmouth, is an addition to the ranks of our Welsh-speaking and Welsh- ■' writing Bishops.' At Oxford, where he was president of the union, he was known for his torrential eloquence, but to-day (writes a friend) "his manner in the pulpit or on the platform, suggests, rather a deep, slow-moving river than _ torrent.'-' _..

Sir Basil Zaharoff, whom he (Mr. Hamilton Fyffe) calls "one of the shadowy in-; fluences behind the scenes of international relations, is a great power _ in Levantine politics. He is a Bulgarian Greek, was born to no fortune, engaged when lie was young in some business in Constantinople. ' He first became rich by developing the Bilbao iron ore.industry. On' the way, to Spain to look up some relatives he met a man who was an agent, for Vickers. Munition makers were then: in need of hematite ore. Zaharoff saw his opportunity, took it, and made himself supreme in tho Vickers firm. But that is now only one of the many interests upon which he keeps a close watch and which he directs with autocratic authority. He is a man of taste, fond of good music, fond of good pictures. He lives mostly in France, where he has a house in Paris and a country glace on the Sbmme."

The return of Lord Grey into political life was not a sudden or a purely personal, and spontaneous: impulse. ' It is understood, that it was the subject of conversation's extending over months, that Lord"' Grey, as usual—for he has never' had1 much personal ambition— was inclined" to hold back. Everybody of the 'eighties and the 'nineties "remembers his famous saying : "I'm told the ball is at my. feet; but I don't care to kick it." It required, therefore, some pressure-to induce him once more to plunge into the vofte*. But he has taken the plunge; and it ( may be now assumed that when the time comes for a new combination of the Liberal forces this must mean his having a very prominent part in the reconstructed party, and perhaps also in the Ministry,-which must come when the new Coalition sucr ceeds the present.

Sir Basil Thompson, until recently in charge of the Criminal. Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, recently described his .business as "the internal safety of the country. There is. an armchair in my office in which.every spy, real or fancied, sat while he wag accounting for his movements," he. added. "On the average, four persons a day sat in that chair throughout the war. They were cautioned . that they need not answer any question, but that what they said might be used in evidence against them;—a caution which almost invariably induced loquacity— and questions and answers were recorded in shorthand. At least nine out of every, ten persons, who might otherwise have been detained under suspicion for an indefinite period, were cleared of all suspicion by the' examination. It used, to be a joke among my staff that no single person, however angry he'was when he came in, left the room without thanking me, profusely." Roger .'Casement sat in that; chair, a

Mr. Herbert Hoover, ex food administrator and "war relief organiser, is of pioneer Quaker' stock. His father .was an lowa blacksmith, with three generations of sturdy American Quakers behind him—men and' women who had .'moved across the Eastern half of the land in search of the real freedom, of worship that was so precious to his' ancestor. From lowa, as a boy, Hoover was sent to a branch of the family that had moved on to Oregon, and it was from Oregon that he went to tlie new university that Senator Stanford created on a California, stock farm. At the university, Professor David StaTr Jordan, director of Stanford University, had promised that the winds of. freedom should blow^a promise that drew Hoover and Tnany other yomig men and women, who were more or less vaguely determined to escape academic tradition. -He made his first success as a mining engineer, in Australia. Then he-returned to California .married a fellow student at Stanford, .went- to 'China and was in the Boxer siege of Pelun., Together Mr. and Mrs.. Hoover, there .organised the food .supply of-the besieged. - ,

Yiscpnntess'Bhondda, whose,claim, as. a peeress in her own.right, to sit in the House, of Lords was recently rejected, succeeded,to the title on the death of her father in 1918. He. had been British Food Controller during the war, and Lady Rhondda (then Lady Mackworth) succeeded to the important place he,had occupied in tho financial world of Great Britain, as well as to-his title. An. only child, she, had been educated to this end by her father, who was „an immensely wealthy man, and whose gift for finance she evidently inherited. .But she-refuses to regard.herself as the exception which proves the rule that women do not make .successful-financiers. -: As did her father before her, she regards a university education1, at the best possible foundation' on-which a-man or woman can'build a career nowadays. At. tho- present-, lime Lady Rhondda, wlio-is-not yet 40 years of age, is chairwoman of'directors of the British Fire .Insurance Co.. Ud., viccchairw'oman of another large company, a director of-tho Cumbrian Collieries. Ltd., and of at least 35 other '■' companies., m ■ Gr.eat. Britain, many, of .then collieries!.