INDIA'S NEW VICEROY

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 141, 11 December 1925, Page 9

INDIA'S NEW VICEROY

CHARACTER THAT RULES THE EMPIRE

TrfE PERSONALITY OF MR. E. F.

L. WOOD

APPOINTMENT APPROVED,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, 6th November.

On all sides approval is expressed at the appointment of the Eight Hon. E. F. L. Wood, M.P., to the ViceRoyalty and Governor-Generalship of India in succession to the Earl of Beading. This new appointment creates a vacancy in the representation of the Eipon Division of the West Biding.

The new Viceroy is the heir and eldest son surviving of Viscount Halifax, the eminent Churchman, and is a remarkable example of what can be done in British public life in a decade and a half by dint of talent, patriotism, and.energy. Born in 1881, he was educated at Eton, Christ Church, and All Soul's, Oxford, where he took his degree of M.A., and attained a Fellowship of his college. He entered Parliament in January, 1910, as member for the Ripon division of the West Biding of Yorkshire, and has retained the seat ever since. Mr. Bonar Law appointed, him Parliamentary Undersecretary for the Colonies in 1021, and in'the following year he became President of the Board of Education. He was given by Mr. Baldwin the poit of Minister of Agriculture and and Fisheries in the present Government, and/ as he told the National Farmers' Union the other day, his policy has been one of inculcating "effort and, determination on the part of the industry itself, wisely encouraged by the State," rather th an any line of State ownership or State management.

One of the most enterprising tasks Mr. Wood has undertaken, however, was when he revived in the Colonial Office the precedent of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and made a tour overseas. Between December, 1921, and the February of the following year he visited the West Indies and British Guiana. As he showed subsequently in a valuable White Paper, he and his companions, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, M.P., and Mr. E. A. Wiseman, of the Colonial Office, had to omit the Bahamas and Honduras through want of time, but they toured the remainder of the islands in groups, and went into constitutional as well as economic and other questions. At the Board of Education he showed- a keen interest in experimental work, aiming at unity rather than uniformity. As Minister or' Agriculture he has endeavoured to establish the principle of continuity of policy on the lines of steady developmsnt. Last summer, with Lord Blodisloe, his Parliamentary. Secretary, he visited Denmark to study. agricultural methods there.

In September, 1922, Mr. Wood handed over to the Leeds Corporation on liberal ..terms his historic seat "of Temple Newsam, the "Hampton Court of the North," together wiUi such pictures aii'l other objects of interest as'wpulii preserve its 'charactttr for all time. Temple Newsam was inherited under the will of an aunt. Mr. Wood is the author of a study of John Keble, and once collaborated with" Sir. George Lloyd, the new High Commissioner for Egypt, in a book called "The Great Opportunity."

fITAK. SERVICE

Mr. Wood had obtained a commission in the Yorkshire Dragoons, and it was in that regiment that he served during the first three years of the recent war. Later he commanded his Unit, and was mentioned in dispatches. In 1917 Sir Auckland Geddes, then Minister of National Service, appointed .him Assistant Secretary in that Ministry, with the special duty of acting as chief liaison officer between the Ministry and other Government Departments. Mr. Wood is regarded as one of the most efficient of the younger men in the Ministry. His predominant characteristic is, that of caution, a quality so necessary in a Viceroy. He will approach the educational problem in India with the experience and knowledge of an expert. It is estabished custom for the Viceroy of India to be raised to the peerage on taking office if he is not already a peer. Mr. Wood.will thus become a peer during his father's lifetime. His elevation will form a parallel to that of the late Marquess Curzon, who was made an Irish peer on becoming Viceroy during the lifetime of his father, Lord Scarsdale.

LIKED BT FARMERS.

Mr. Wood leaves the Ministry of Agriculture with the question of tithe redemption B till unsettled. Farmers resen,t the idea of being compelled to redeem the tithe rent on a : higher basis than par.. The farmers liked him. He never failed to remind them that he was a farmer and a member of their union. He understood their grievances, took tome into his confidence, and carefully made no promises except that he would do his beet. He ru pfrtymwtrr ainigU ia hard-foaghi

controversy with the farmers' leaders. His many speeches to them breathed hopefulxess, bnt nothing satisfying in the way of agricultural reform. WHAT AN ENGLISHMAN GIVES. . Referring to the appointment, "The Morning Post" says : '.'The announcement will no doubt dash some hopes, and certainly it makes an end of many rumours. Lord Birkenhead was said to have marked the «.p----pointment as his own, and there were others whose qualifications have beeu hopefully canvassed. We suppose, therefore, that there are some —for such is human vanity—who will envy Mr. Wood this great office; for our pan we shall not venture to congratulate him, since it is an appointment which holds at least as much anxiety as hdoour, and places a grievous burden en the shoulders of those. who take it. . .

If it be objected that he is an unproved man as far at least v India is ' concerned, we may at least reply that lie is not by any means the first Englishman who has gone to that post with no equipment of special experience, yet has won through with success by sound instinct and the high traditions of his claas and family. And, on the other hand, there are caies iv history of, men who knew much of the East and yet failed by some rice rf character or lack of that high motive, native courage and sound judgment, which, with birth and breeding, sre the chief essentials for the post. Fhs' natives of India, it is said, like an English 'gentleman* because they get from him, if not always complete understanding, at least justice and honour. "The Viceroy of India, if he is supported by a good council, can have bis special knowledge supplied to him; ■what he cannot do without are tact, courage, and judgment. The qualities of a.: good Governor are the game all the world over: what we call manhood contains most of them. The. Englishman cannot hope to equal the subletiex of the Oriental mind, but the English would not be the rulers of India unless they opposed to that sublety something which the Oriental has not got, a simple directness which cuts through their most elaborate calculation!." . ,

A TRADITIONAL WHIG.

It - is ', recognised that Mr. Baldwin had a difficult task in finding a successor to Lord Reading, whose record (says the Bight Hon. T. P. O'Connor) has not yet quite sunk into the minds of his countrymen at home; but thoa* who know India agree in the view that, facing a most difficult situation, he has controlled it with a fine mixture of firmness and consideration.

Mr. O'Connor describes Mr. Wood as one of the picturesque figures of the

House of Cmmons; he is unusually tall; some inches above six feet, his height alone would make, him conspicuous; but he has never sought notice himself. Oa the contrary, everything about him points to a modesty and reserve which, common though these qualities are among his countrymen, are especially noticeable in him. . . He is one of the men who bring religion, I thonld say, to every thought and act of their lives.

"If I were asked to describe Mr. Wood, I should say that he' was the most typical of what I regard v the finest type of mv—namely, the honest Englishman. Of great family distinction—grandson of a man who was once Secretary for India and a prominent politician; son of a peer; owner of large estates—in • way he seems to walk out of the eighteenth century, <ir, to be perhaps a little more accurate, out of the early Victorian days, when the squires—especially on the Liber.il side—were still the chief personalities in the government of the country. Though now he is nominally a Conservative, he would be more accurately described as; a Whig—of the same school as Palmerston, Graham, and Lord John. Russell, or, if we could, go back further, of Charles James Fox, who united the traditions of great birth and a keen regard for popular liberties. Jf you met Mr. Wood at -the . Arctic Pole, or in the Antarctic, you would know from the first look at him that he was an Englishman; his race and hft tradition are written in letters too legible in his face, his figure, and his speech, to be mistaken for anything else. "It is perhaps part of this mental and moral equipment that he is extremely discreet, and, even in private conversation, slow of-speech.. It is probably because he feels so strongly that his word most be his bond that he-is careful in committing himself. The picture I have tried to draw of him may suggest a .dull seriousness; he is serious, but not in the least dull. He can crack s quiet joke,, and, above all, he has i beautiful and almost boyish smile ihat liehtens up his face. He is approachable, with all his air of cold dignity. . .

CHARACTER THAT RULES.

"tf a sympathetic attempt to understand and a courteous way of approaching or being approached can settle a .difficulty, he is. the man for the task. I can already figure him in all the robes and something, like the omnipotence of the Viceroy of India; able to converse freely and frankly with even the enthusiast and the fanatic, perhaps the enemy; able to reach points of view that are entirely, different from his own; and, above all, giving to all raca and to all creeds the sense of the moral superiority of a thorough English gentleman. It is character that rules the British Empire more than our swords, and in sending to India a man who so truly represents the best that is in o;zr character,-we have chosen a man who ?s one of its finest embodiments.

LADY D6ROTHY WOOD. ;

"Prom all I have heard and read of Lady Dorothy Wood, she is the worthy heiress also of the game high traditions as her husband, and will rise :.o the • combination of dignity and sweetness which a lady in that exalted position requires ;.. and, ■ let' me a^ the Vicereine counts, almost as much- ,-s the Viceroy in facing the tremendous' problems of the Government of.lndia." Tall and graceful, and possessing a charming personality, I Ja dy Dorothy should prove a very succeisfiil leader of society in India. She has a host of friend* ud admirers at Home.

85, Fleet HtmA,