In the Public Eye

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 11, 14 July 1928, Page 27

In the Public Eye

Lord wester Wemyss. It is evident that there arc other parts of the world beside New Zealand and Australia which suffer from the too rapid increase of rabbits, but it is also evident that legislation to deal wi*h them is not nearly 80 easy to achiovo in England as it is in New Zealand or the Commonwealth. During the present week the Rabbits Bill was introduced into the Houso of Lords with1 tho object of providing a means of dealing with a pest which has oecomo increasingly, troublesome of recent years, mainly" because of tho strict but foolish law's relative to poaching. Lord WestefWemyss, however, did not consider -this' point, but moved, the rejjectioVof. the Bill last Wednesday on otheX'-giounds —that it was not in conformjW with the recommendations of the Select 'Committee set up to report on the o master ', and that it was not really^designed to exterminate rabbits, but to.placate the Farmers' Union. The noble lord who moved the motion ia well known in naval circles, and was a prominenKfigure' in the later stages of the Great War. As representing the British' Admiralty he was present when the Armistice was arranged, and the tale is familiar of how, when the German naval'; representative complained that it was a hard condition that the German warships should bo surrendered, seeing that they had not been defeated, his Lordship, placing his monocle in his eye, drily remarked, "Well, they had only got to come out." Lord Wester Wemyss was born in 1864, and entered the Navy in 1877. He was promoted to lieutenant in; 1887, commander in. 1898, captain in 1901, and.in 1911-12 he was Rear-Admiral, of the Second Baltic Squadron. In 1916 he was promoted to the rank of Vice-Admiral, and in 1918 he became Admiral of the Fleet. He was in command of the naval squadion at the landing of troops in Gallipoli, and has written a book on tho Navy in tho Dardanelles campaign. Lord Wester Wemyss, the man, is an arresting personality. The first thing that strikes one about' him is that he is a "somebody." Above tho average height, he haa a dignified yet easy carriage and a charm of manner which, even if one did not know who he was, would at once single him out in a crowd. His monocle,, firmly screwed in one eye, seoms~part of a slightly whimsical but habitually cheery expression. But above all ho has distinctly the "cut of the sailor/ <for Lord Wemyss has spent his life since boyhood's days in tho Navy, and much of it at sea. Sir John Eldon Eankes. The' chairman of the special Commiseion set up by tho House of Commons to inquire into the ctfarges against the officials of Scotland Yard, and which delivered its report this week, is Sir Jnhn V.Wnn P.nnkps. a man who has passed 74 years of great usefulness to his country as a barrister and Judge. He js a member of one of the oldest and most:1 famous of British legal families, for not only is he a greatgrandson of tho distinguished Lord Chancellor. Eldon, whose name he bears, but he is a direct descendant of the Sir v John. Bankes who, after being AttorneyGeneral, was made Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in the stormy days of Charles I. "Sir Eldon Bankes was educated at Eton and Oxford, and rowed in tho University boat race in 1875 and the following year. Ho became a barrister of the Inner Temple in 1878, a Bencher ia 1899, King.'a Counsel in 1901, and was a Judge of tho King's Bench Division from 1910 to 1915. In tho latter year ho was appointed a Lord' Justice of Appeal, and only retired from that office last year. A genial", able lawyer, he is worthy of his distinguished ancostry. , Erect of car-' riage, Sir John looks much younger than his years. While an occupant of' the Bench1 hid judgments wcro'models of concise reasoning. When ho had a reserved judgment to write it was no uncommon thing for him to go down to his room in the Law Courts and only interrupt' his labours in order to attend service in tho Temple Church. The democratic freedom of the people, of England and the honour of Scotland Yard may well feel safe when placed in-the custody of such a man. Mr. J. if. Withers, M.P. The second member of tho Scotland Yard Commission of the House of Commons who signed the majority report along, with tho chairman, Sir John Eldon Bankes, is Mr. John James With«r« PUT1. rVnspv^ntivo member for Cambridgo University, to which seat, ho was elected unopposed in 1926 in succession to the .late Mr. J. F. P. Rawlinson, K.C. Ho is now 64 years old, and is the founder and head of tho legal firm of Withets, Benson, Currie, .wunams ana-iUo., oi the Strand, London. Ho went from Eton to King's College, Cambridge, and graduated .with honours in p tho Classical Tripos in 1887. He has for many,years been a co-opted ■member of the Cambridge University Appointments Board, and is a director of the Legal and General Assurance Society, Ltd. A keen mountaineer, he was formerly honorary secretary of tho Alpino Club, of which he was vicopiesident in 1925] and he is also a member of tho Everest Committee. During tho Great War he was on tho staff of the Propaganda Department of the Ministry of Information. He has written quite a number of books on various subjects, including a register of students at King's College, Cambridge, "various sections of tho Alpine Club's edition of Ball's "Central Alps," and many articles on mountaineering in the "Alpine Journal" and other publications. Sir Edward Hilton Young. Among tho British delegates selected to represent Great Britain at the approaching Leaguo of Nations Conference, apart from the two leaders —Sir Austen. Chamberlain and Lord Cushendun—none fills tho Public Eye to a greater extent than does Sir Ed.ward Hilton .Young, member of Parliament for Norwich, and an a ckn owl edged authority on economic matters. He is now in his forty-ninth year, and; was Financial Secretary to. the Treasury in 1921-22r'-' Ho first entered Parlia-, xnent for Norwich in 1915, but was defeated in 19!!3 by tw6 Labour candidates, one of whom was Miss

Dorothy JoWson, but he turned the iablos the following year and has sat for Norwich ever since. Ho was edu-, catcd .at Eton and Tiinity, Cambridge, and called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1904. During the Great War ho fillod quite a number of service parts, from the action of Zeebruggc, where he was severely wounded and lo&t an-arm on the Vindictive, to the Naval Mission to Serbia in 19X5. He has lepresented the Old Country at The Hague Conference on International Finance, and. presided over the Royal Commission on fndian Currency. Ho is editor at the present time of tho "Financial News," one of tho rocognised business journals of the Blitish Emphe, and has written several books on the subject of finance. His advice on financial matters has been sought after by several of tho smaller European Powers, Poland in particular seeking his services. When the mark sank in 1924 to something ,like a million to the pound sterling, the Polish non-party Government then in power agreed to subordinate all other problems to those of financial reconstruction. The then Premier,, M. Grabski, sought the assistance of Great Britain' and Sir Hilton Young, then only Mr. Young, was sent on" a financial mission to that country. - He asked for and received emergency powers, and was able in an astonishingly short,time to stabilise the currency and balance the Budget, putting the country well on tho road to a prosperity which has not since been dimmed. In 1922 he married Lady Scott, widow bt the famous Antarctic 3xplorer. The Hon. W. O. A.Onusby-Gore. As the representative of the Secretary of State for tho Dominions, the Right Hon. W. G. A. Orinsby-Gore has just concluded a fiv« months' tour of Malaya, Ceylon, Singapore, Java, and other nlacea in the East, during which; he .travelled over 20,000 miles, and' held conferences with various colonial Governments with which he came in contact. The main object of his journey was to investigate agricultural progress and .research ' in the Tropics, and aiso to mquiro into public health generally in the same places, tho whole to be incorporated in a report he will later submit to Parliament. Mr. Orins-by-Gore, who is Under-Sccretary of State for the Colonies, was accompan-ied-,'on his journey-"by Mr. .. G. H< Creasy, of the Colonial Office, and Mr, E. M. H. Lloyd, secretary of, the Researoh Grants Committee of' the Empire Marketing Board. The principal object of the Under-Secretary is to report1 on.scientific and economic developments in British Malaya, and, in particular,'on the progress of the medical, agricultural, veterinary, forestry, and educational Departments'in that State.. He left England on 15th March, and arrived at Penang on 6th April. He left Singapore on his return journey on Ist June, spending a fortnight in Ceylon for tho purpose of visiting the agricultural research stations in that island, and arrived back in England on the date he was due—loth July. He conferred with the several colonial Governments of the places he visited regarding ■ the recommendations made at the Colonial Offico Conference last year, and on matters arising out-""o^ the- IoiV" perial 'Agricultural Research Conference. His report is expected to be analogous to that prepared when he visited British West Africa in 1926, and will be presented to Parliament in due course. Mr. Ormsby-Goro did distinguished service during tho Great War as intelligence officer at the Arab Bureau. He began his political,career as private secretary to the late yiscpuiit Milner, entoHng-Tarliainent in'l9lo'fpr Stafford, which- he'has retained' ever1 since. He has taken'a prominent part in most of „tho great political and international'- post-war movements, notably the peace settlements in Paris and tho Indian reform scheme. He was the official British representative. on the Permanent Mandates Commission, and has inaugurated a new era of colonial policy* by MS;official visits to the West Indies/East Africa, and the East, each of them resulting j,n, valuable and stimulating reports. -, Mr. A. A. Purcell, M.P. /The. Courts of Justice in England and Parliament have come into frequent contact during recent months as a result of several happenings which have cast a certain-amount, of reflection on the tactics of Scotland Yard. One of the most noticeable of these episodes was the speech mado this. week by Mr. A. A. Purcell, Labour member for the Forest of Dean, who entered • a strong plc'a for compensation for Mrs. Pace. Mrs. Pace, the mother of five children, one of them a babe in arms, was charged with the murder of her husband by means of administering arsenic,'but after a prolonged trial, longer than is usual under British justice,' the jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and she was discharged. Mr. Purcell now asks that Parliament should pay her a certain amount of compensation for wrongful arrest, and 'the matter is to be inquired into by the Minister of Justice. :. Mr. Purcell, who is prominent in the Labour movement, though not one oi' the groat figures of the party, is recognised as one of tho most popular men in the ranks of Labour. If there is anything ,that needs saying for the sake of the workers, Mr. Purcell speaks out without fear or favour. The General Council of the Trades Union congress having had Mr. Purcell as a colleague since 1919, confirmed its confidence in him by putting him in the presidential chair, tho highest elective position on the industrial sido of the Lsbour movement. . His strong personality, so capable in a fight, is matched by hit ability as a negotiator. Born in London, but educated at Keighley, in Yorkshire, he worked in a mill as a youth, finally becoming a french polisher. He was elected president of his traclo union in 1894, becoming its secretary a yoar later, and in 1910 he was appointed organiser of the Furnishing Trade Association. Ten years later he visited Kussia as ono of delegates of tho British Labour, an experience he repeated in 1924 in company with some others prominent in the movement, the purty publishing a report on their return which caused a considerable stir in England. In 1910 ho contested Salford in the Labour interest, but was not successful, and did not enter Parliament until 1923 when he was returned for Coventry. lie suffered defeat the following year, however, but was returned for tho Forest of Dean i7i 1925 in succession to the late Mr. J. Wignall, who had held tho seat for a number of years on behalf of Labour.