IRISH FREE STATE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 100, 2 May 1929, Page 13

IRISH FREE STATE

NEW MINISTER TO WASHINGTON

(From "Tho Post's" Representative) NEW YORK, 20th March. Mr. Michael Mac White, the new Irish Free State Minister to Washington has urrivod, with tho regrets of the Geneva diplomatic colony, with whom ho was associated for live years, still ringing iv his cars. Mr. Mac While was tho first official representative accredited outside the Emerald Islo by the Free State Government. Ever since he handed his papers to Sir Eric Drummond, he kept a weather eye on tho Lion's tail seeking unauccs to twist it. Vet not .a single member of the British delegation at tho Quai Woodrow Wilson but was genuinely sorry when he went. They tell a story at tho League of the long and tedious discussions on opium at the 1924 session. Mac White said little. When- he did speak, it was in French, which shares with English the honour of being the official language a' Geneva. Then, one bright day, when there was a lull, MacWhitP rose and denounced the British delegation in a way that commanded attention He spoke in tho King's English! Asked why he had suddenly departed from his custom of speaking in French, he replied, "to be sure the blighters would understand rue!" Prior' to his tour of duty in Geneva, Mr. Mac White, as representative of Sinn Fein in Paris, bad served hi? militant countrymen well, as ho had served them during the war at homo. Mrs. Mac White, who is of Danish origin, has made something of a reputation in Europe as a painter (if landscape?. Jler work lias oppean-d in the Autumn Halon in Paris, and in Copenhagen and Dublin. Messages marked "British Official WlroIpss," published in this Issue, are sent out by tho Imperial Affairs Branch of the Prime Minister's Department of the New Zealand Government.