In the Public Eye POINTS OF NOTABLE PERSONALITIES

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 89, 14 April 1923, Page 12

In the Public Eye

POINTS OF NOTABLE PERSONALITIES

Viscount Burnham, the owner and active ; director of the London "Daily Telegraph," presided over the several international labour congresses in -Geneva—conferences that have been, more productive of results than the congresses of the kindred League of Nations. 1 It is said that no better man could be found to direct the activities of these labour congresses than Lord Burnham, who is remarkably free from political partisanship and prejudice, arid whose services to the State have been'of an extensive and varied nature. .He'served'in the House of Commons for thirty years, and since the war has been actively concerned in the relief and employment of the many thousands of invalided and demobilised' officers. He is a particularly good friend of journalism and journalists in London.

Senator Lodge, who is said to be considering retirement from the Republican leadership in the American Senate, is a typical product of Boston culture and Boston political' integrity. He is one of the few American statesmen whose name is familiar over here, both as a- great international lawyer and a politician with world interests'. He has been thirty years a senator, and has found time, to write many valuable historical books dealing chiefly with the development and progress of the United States. He is also a poet of some achievement. He might, perhaps be called the Bryce of modern America. ..-■..-

SirJagadis Chandra Bose, the Indian scientist, was educated both.in India and in England. He talks and lectures like a • Western scholar, and with the vocabulary and cultivated; accent- of a Cambridge man. His researches in plant life,: as well as inorganic matter, have revealed curious facts hitherto unknown to the.Western world. He is the author of a, number of scientific works, among the best known being "Response in the Living and Non-Living/' ''The Response of Inorganic Movement to Stimulus," "Life Movement in Plants." And among the curious disooveries made'in. the course of his experiments are the qualities of fatigue, response to stimulus, and death in metals.

Mr: A. S. M. Hutchinson, author of "This/. Freedom" and "If ■ Winter Comes," .is abnormally shy. He confesses, how fearful he is when oratory .is. expected from him. ■ Two years ago he was. a struggling-author. „ He is now a rich-man, and his last tw^o books have been so fabulously successful that the; head of the Boston firm which published "If Winter Comes" in America has brought his wife over to London specially to attend the firgt performance of the dramatised version at the St. James's Theatre. Hutchinson is so bashful a man that, in welcoming the Burns Club guests by name. P. N. Macfarla.ne, the president, kept him to the last, and then merely said, "I will only, mention the last .man's initials,' which are those of A Shy. Man." Even that made Hutchinson, blush.

Mr, J. R. ;Clynes,,the.English. Labour leader,: has;'«iade: his. way in • spite ;'of the fact that he cuts no great figure "in" debate and appears unsuited to a life of strenuous action. He has arrived by sheer force ;of . character and intellect. He has 'never '.tried';' to . adopt 'the role of the agitator in order to attract attention. He has always been true to .his character which.is that of the quiet honest individual who states his case calmly and persuasively and will never bargain away his ideals for any immediate gain. Had he been born and bred in the middle classes, he would have become a professor or clergyman. As it is he is known as an honest wee man and he is proud of this, his chief distinction. Mr. Clynes has worked hard at educating himself and is of wide reading and culture. His speeches indeed have a scholarly tone, his words being carefully chosen with apt quotations. . They reveal a natural refinement and a sensitive nature. , His career is a triumph over early handicaps. He is above all a moderate who hates violence.;. . .'■'.

Mr. Arthur Henderson, the English Labour leader, began life as an apprentice to a firm of moulders, but his .natural gifts for speaking and organising soon removed him from the ranks of "the manual labourer. ... Ha won his spurs, in municipal life, achieving- mayoralty quite vounpr, and was chosen to fight a seat at Newcastle with John.Morley (now Lord: Morley). and although he retired from the contest the episode proves that he was willing at one time to throw in his lot with the Liberals. Subsequently in 1903 he entered Parliament as a Labour member and soon made himself felt in debates. -

Mr. W. Cooke, of Mansfield, Woodhouse, Notts, who. preaohed his first sermon in 1860, when he was 15 years old, has rendered continuous voluntary service to English Methodism for over 60 years. He has travelled, mostly on foot.-10,000 miles to deliver 5000 sermons and 90 temperance lectures. Born at Nottingham in 1845. he worked for over half a century as a silk spinner at the Pleasley Vale Mills- of Messrs. W. Hollins. Mr. Cooke is well known as an evangelist in the cpunties of Notts, Derbyshire! Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, and Leicestershire. Often tramping 20 miles on Sunday, he has been a,t work before 6 o'clock next morning.

Lord Kilmarnock, who is filling 'with great ability . a most difficult post as High Commissioner on the Rhine, is adding new lustre to a family which has a lone roll of honour. His father, the' Earl of Erroll, is 23rd Hiijh Constable of Scotland, and as such ranks first in Scotland after the blood royal, and has a right to take precedence of every hereditary honour, a rijjht maintained with success during visits of King.. George IV., King Edward VII, and' King George V. The earldom goes back to the 15th century, and it was Robert Bruce who gave to the family the high office of Constable. Lord Robert Cecil, with his tall, spare figure and ascetic.?!look, recalls to the "Christian Science.Monitor " a picture of Savonarola, and cartoonists like to depict him iri: the cowl and cord of a Dominican monk. . Tn the last Parliament he sat in the corner of the.front Opposition bench; a. detached and rather, lonely figure. ..The bent shoulders and droop-of th" head .which are so characteristic.gave him a melancholy air as he watched,wjth deep abstraction the Parliamentary drama. No party cry, no intrigue for ! power moved'him. He had surrendered ■ office and all chauce of immediate preferment by refusing to compromise on' the Welsh Church Disestablishment Act, The church: question had divided him from the Coalition.. It forbade him. to link his .fortunes to Mr. Asquith's party. .When .he ' first "entered the House he was. far | from a. polished debater, but rapped out |. his words in an awkward and jerky manner. He has never quite lost his rugged manner, • which is an index to the fierce earnestness with which he > approaches 1 evei-y question.