In the Public Eye

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 3, 3 July 1926, Page 26

In the Public Eye

Dame Nellie Melba.

The announcement thia week that Damo Nellie Melba, who has clone more to place Australia on the map than any other living Australian, pave her farewell reci'-.1 to England last Friday in] the Albert Hall, London, brings home to HMp^^^ one the fact that BBBg^^Bsßthe vcars are i>ass" ■PlgprU iH'Bgi and that even ■e^."""-^^,™ the peerless '' Queen ■Kir * °* Song" must give Wm p , 1 lace to a younger St __ 9| generation. The pubHfc "" iB 'c> ever faithfui to mSfSk. torn. +'ioao who devote |WP' WM '''Cl gifts and skill BBpT lts amnsenient W^ and education, is ■•£ H inevitably attracted 1 i^B by the incidents and adventines of an r tist's life. Damo Nellie has made full "use of the opportunities given her,' and ■ the name c f Melba evokes perhaps, the most cherished memories1 of, simple sonjr which have held vast audiences spellbound in all parts of tho: world. Her voice is like an instrument; idii'.whieh, she could play as she pleased, while her audience became as on- iii mood, in will, in desire. The fine lady.forgot '-er finery, the fop his foppery, the stricken their sorrow, and the ".young; their vivacity. Singing in England she lias been able to recall to Australians by.means if some simple little melody visions of a distant homeland^ and English folk who heard the great: singer in the Commonwealth were similarly affected. The value of such messages is not to be underestimated, and' Dame Melba had the gift in this direction more directly than any' other singer of the present generation. Dame Melba is now in the sixties, and mad- her debut to English audiences in 1888, though she had appeared before audiences in her own country before that. She took her name from her native city, of Melbourne, and though the most of her years have been spent,in England she has never forgotten her native land, while each time she has visited Australia her visits to the principal cities have been like .a royal pageant. Last year she announced her intention to retire from the concert and operatic platform, and her concert. last week was therefore her final appearance before an adoring public, which demon-. strated very loudly its affection for the great singer. Mr. L. C. M. S. Amcry. Tho Kight Hon. Leopold Charles Maurice Stennett Amery has had rather a meteoric career, and his rise to a position that allows him to sway the destinies of the British Empire as Secretary of State for the Dominions has

been so sudden that th?t people are not quite able to undera^an^- h*s Pr°gress. Mr. Amery was educa^e^ a' Harrow wards was a memten years. He was

chiefly connected with t^i colonial department of that paper, but was an ardent tariff reformer, and his energies' were eventually diverted to, a history of tho South African War. At first a barrister, he became a solicitor on • leaving "The Times'' in 1909, but soon abandoned the law for Parliament. Ho was elected to tho House of Commons in 1911, and has sat with but little intr -mission ever since. During the Great War he was made Assistant-Secretary to the Cabinet in 1917, and it used to be said that he and Sir Maurice Hankoy knew more official war secrets than any other two men in the country. After serving as Under-Secretary in the Colonial Office and in the, Admiralty, the late Mr. Bonar Law placed him in the Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1922, within eleven years of his first entry into Parliament. His principal exploit a First Lord was to cause to bo published a document meant to destroy the findings of the Geddes Committee on Naval Expenditure, for Mr. Amery is the most reckless political spendthrift in the Cabinet. It was ho who forced the Singapore Base upon the British Tarliament, and, it is also stated, that his policy of Empire preference brought about Mr. Baldwin's crushing defeat at the polls, resulting in Labour taking office. "Mr. Amery ia more English than the English," wrote Lovat Fraser in the "Daily Mail" a couple of years ago, "and he is the most con.p'ruous example of Imperialistic megalomania we possess. He does not reveal the smallest instinct of economy in the handling of the taxpayers' money, while he has probably the most untrustworthy judgment of any politician of

our time." In explaining his access, Mr. Fraser says that he carries all before him in the Cabinet because he works "whilo most of the other Ministers do not work much." He is very short, very pugnacious, and ho lias a fearless c .rage couplod with great driving power. \/arren Bardsley. Never has Australia sent a greater cricketer on tour than Warren Bardsley, who this week eclipsed all his previous performances in Test matches by scoring 193 not out. On three previous tours he has scored over 2000 runs on each occasion, and in Sheffield „p^" . '*•%*, Shield matches, 'f ij;- which are the main - ™ ":"*-*-k:^4 -feature of Austra- '& 4S&|£sWilßP*i' !'an cricket, taking *. J^WW^^ the place of the 3^" **%%£ ~'W§s? county fixtures in R|§ *^ih§BC England, he has ©^ - ■"'"- made over 2000 runs \ \ 'r'*^f'W' against both Vic- \' /-''"' »^ toria and South Australia. He is the oldest member of the side at present touring England, being 42 years of age. In 1909 he created a reiord that has not yet been equalled by an Australian player, by scoring two separate centuries in a Test match, and that he is still able to stand the strain of an English tour shows the way in which he has takon care of himself. Bardsley was a member of the Ai jtralian teams to visit England in 1909, 1912, and 1921, and has played 44 innings in Test matches between the two countries, scoring 1256 runs. He has scored thousands of runs in interstate matches for New South Wales, and is always a favourite with the cricketing public both in England and Australia. He is a left-handed batsman, a strong back-player, and he has many valuable strokes, but he scores chiefly by means of behind-the-wicket strokes. Warren Bardsley is at the present time the Australian agent for tho well-known English firm of Duke's, and is also interested in a mercer's shop at Mosman, Sydney. He is a shrewd business man, and one who may be said to be eminently successful. M. Joseph Caillaux. The portfolio of Fina) c in the re-cently-reconstructed FrencV Cabinet has been taken up by M. Joseph Caillaux, who has already had previous experience of the office. He has had an astonishing career. In 1914, when his wife shot M. Calmette,

editor of "Figaro," it was thought that his career had been effectively ruined- An throusn pacifist policy earned him the hatred and contempt of every patriotic Frenchman, and in 1917 ho was arrested

on a charge of c o m m v nicating with the enemy. He was sentenced in 1920 to three years' imprisonment, five years' banishment from Paris, and ten years' deprivation of civil and political rights. Ho was, moreover, accused by hh enemies of private immorality and financial corruption. Had anyone suggested in France a few years ago that a man with such a sinister record could ever again play a prominent part in French public life he would have been thought mad. And yet the French Senate, by 176 votes to 104, a couple of years ago passed a Bill granting him an amnesty, and now he is back in Ministerial office. Caillaux was bora in 1863. He was the son of a Finance Minister in the Broglie Cabinet, and so inherited a leaning toward politics. He became a Treasury official, and a professor of political economy, entered the Chamber of Deputies, in 1898, and, so unmistakable wag his ability, was given the post of Finance Minister by M. Waldeck-Eousseau in the following year, Caillaux had always been a pacifist, and one of his first moves on becoming Premier in 3911 was to court an alliance with Germany as a substitute for the entente with Britain. The result was the Agadir crisis. Germany thought that with the French Ministry favourably disposed, Britain could be safely ignored. But when Mr. Lloyd George, at the request of Mr. Asquith and Sir Edward Grey, made his famous speech at the Mansion House in July, 1911, and the Ministry showed that it meant business, the Kaiser found that he had miscalculated, and climbed down. That crorr of judgment lost M. Caillaux the Premiership, and it as not until M. Doumergue formed a Ministry in 1913 that he returned to office as Finance Minister. | I