A HUSBAND'S TRIBUTE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 131, 6 June 1925, Page 17

A HUSBAND'S TRIBUTE

" Conatenco Grande." By Ju)iall Hal" -Lo"Jon: Chapman and "A" memorial of a New Zealand woman of «emus, who came to England in the end. of last cenhirv. and "became (he Ttiosl. influential of British -women ioiivnalisls in the jircßont century." 'Iliis is how Professor .f- Str;di;in, n" wcll-'kno«-u auflior aud scliclaj", has described Mr.

Julian Grande's biography of his wife. "Constance Grande" can hardly be called a biography. It is rather an autobiography. Constance Barniooat, as she was before she married Mr. Grande, kept a diary until a day or two before her death on 16th September, 1922. Her papers were always in scrupulous order, and Mr. Grande has thus been able to draw very largely on her private writing and her public utterances for the substance of his book. The London correspondent of "Tho Post,'" in reviewing tho work, remarks that, tho life of oven an; eminent journalist is necessarily an obscure one. His greatest work is generally done under the unassuming title of "Our Correspondent." Although the .nanie.pt Constance- Barnicoat or Mrs. Julian Grande was well known to various.readers of certain New Zealand nowspapers, especially during the war, tho actual work she accomplished during twenty-five years of ■ active journalism car, only be known and judged by means of. such, a volume as is now published. Even her nearest friends will be surprised to find how much she crowded into her life "in England and Switzerland, and. what a power she wielded during the years of war in what has been called tho plotting ground of Europe. She is described by Professor Strahan, in the introduction, "as a woman gifted with remarkable qualities of mind and spirit, a 'beautiful soul,' immensely interested in the whole life of the world, eager to go everywhere and sea everything, yet with an astonishing power of concentration on any task which she took in hand,, faithful and true in every fibre of her being, quietly and .inevitably' giving her best to the highest." ; Mr. Grande is able to place- before his readers a very exhaustive account of his lats wife's activities.' Certain articles written for various journals in the Dominion and in England by Miss.Barnicoat give a faithful impression of her childhood... Indeed, in "A Pioneer Colonist's Story," which appeared "in the j "National Review" of August, 1909, we gain a peculiarly interesting insight into the life of the pioneers who carried out j the spade work—metaphorically and literally—of the colony. After taking her degree with honours at Canterbury College, Miss Barnicoat spent three years in the office of tho Crown Solicitor in 'Wellington, and then set out for London in 1897. She encountered' all" the vicissitudes of. the-.new-comer to London, but eventually became private secretary to the' late W: T. Stead. How much the great' journalist depended on Miss Barnicoat is told in this volume. She continued as confidential secretary for four years, and then wag editorial assistant for seven years more. _ When Stead died she was able to writs the most trustworthy appreciation of the journalist's character. No one knew him better, both his great points and his weaknesses. Tho book deals in detail with Constance Bamicoat's mountaineering experiences in the Alps, the Caucasus, the Pyreneas, and she was naturally drawn towards uneonquerod peaks. Mr. Grande quotes extensively from her articles on many mountaineering expeditions, and devotes a section of the book to travel sketches. _■-■••'.

In 1912 Mrs. Grande said to her husband: "Switzerland will be either the -battlefield or the plotting-ground of Europe; let us go there and -we shall be at the centre of things." There they made their home, first at Berne, and then in Geneva, and it is this period of Mrs. Grande's life which is absorbingly interesting. Quite early in the war she realised the damage that was being done by the outspokenness of some of the English papers. Germany was quoting extensively from these London papers, which resented the ■ British censorship. The "Yellow Press" was her next target. She accused them, above all, of obscuring and belittling the real issues at stake, thus blinding the public to the seriousness of the situation. ' Probably the most important work undertaken by Mr. and Mrs. Grande was the counteracting of enemy propaganda. Mrs. Grande was a veritable thorn in the. side of those who were influencing the pro-German Press of Switzerland. When the enemy began their peace offensive Mrs. - Grande in her letters to London depicted very clearly the widespread activities of this colossal intrigue. To put it briefly i (she wrote three months before the' Armistice), the Austrians and Germans realise that for them the war is lost from a military point of view, and that the only I hope now remaining is in a peace offensive. That peace offensive is now being vigorously conducted, and by men as well equipped for it in ' their way as were the German soldiers in theirs in ■ 1914. The Allies must realise that the Austro-German ' peace offensive is now as dangerous as was their ■war offensive four years ago. The section of the book dealing with the plotting, intrigue, and propaganda gives a. remarkable insight into that other phase of modern warfare which for the moat part is carried on in secret, but which none the less is one of the great deciding factors in a. world struggle. Mr. Grande, in producing this book, has undoubtedly accomplished a labour of love. Proud as he is of the brilliant woman who was his companion and fellow-worker during so many years, he has, restrained his natural enthusiasm and permitted others who knew her to bear testimony to her work and worth. Perhaps one of the most remarkable testimonies is that tendered by one of the chief agents of German propaganda in Switzerland. He acknowledged when she died that she had been the force he feared most of all. OE the genuineness of her patriotism Mr. Grande shows there is no doubt. She craved no orders or other honours, but "out of her own hard-earned savings in the sweated profession of journalism she spent some thousand pounds in assisting tlic Allies by licr voluntary and unrcmuncralcd literary propaganda-.". Finally, says Mr. Grande, "Xew Zealand 'has never produced a greater lover of Nature, and especially of flowers, than my wife -wan, ;iml T venture to commend to the same "Government, and to all the people of >~ew Zealand, these .words of hers :"'Sho'uld the "Dominion ever adopt ■a national flower,, like the Lily of .France or the Shamrock of Ireland," it must surely be the Mnnuka.' "