In the Public Eye

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 132, 5 June 1937, Page 24

In the Public Eye

The Hon. Charles Wood, who has been elected to the House of Commons at the age of 25, is the son and heir of Viscount Halifax and comes of a famous political family. For hidden under the name of Lord Halifax, though some may not recognise him, there is a former Viceroy of India. The title name of Lord Irwin will evoke memories of a man who won renown as one of the best of British appointments to a troubled State and a man of informed judgment and liberal convictions. Lord Halifax is the third viscount of the name, and, like his son, he entered the House of Commons before he was 30. He was Viceroy of India from 1926 to 1931, and on 'his return to England became at first President of the Board of Education, then for a few months Secretary of State for War, and finally Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Lords. He succeeded his father in 1934. The barony granted to Lord Irwin dated from 1925; it .is held by him still, of course. The Hon. Charles Ingram Courtenay Wood, heir to both the barony and viscountcy, is the second child of Lord Halifax and the eldest of his three sons. He has been a second lieutenant in the Horse Guards. The seat he has won is York, which he held for the Conservatives, and he polled over 22,000 votes against 17,900. Rev. Harold Wilde. Recently' the Rev. Harold Wilde, padre for the last three years on the lonely island of Tristan da Cunha, returned to England for a rest in Manchester, says the "Manchester Guardian." He said that he thoroughly enjoyed his first spell 3f life with the simple Tristan da Cunhans, and hopes to go Hjack to them after a holiday, to carry on with his five-year plan of development on the island itself and on Inaccessible and Nightingale, its two small neighbours, twenty-five miles away. Already he has a colony of boys and men on hitherto uninhabited Inaccessible, growing potatoes and other vegetables with marked success. There are no women living there yet, but he hopes the men will come to regard it as a holiday resort to which to take their womenfolk from time to time, "for a change of air," he says, "for they have never left Tristan, and a change would do them good." Mr. Wilde has all sorts of hopes for the future. He hopes, for instance, that before long the island will have a proper wireless receiving station. Till now a wireless set has been no use, because there is no means of keeping batteries I charged. He hopes, too, that aeroplanes from South Africa may land on tlifi island, and he has already prepared a flat, grassy landing-place and erected a flag-pole in anticipation. He is building a hospital—hitherto he has used his own sitting room, in which he has two beds ready for cases. Asthma is one of the few ailments from which the in-' habitants have suffered, but this is becoming rarer, thanks* to a gift of clogs from a friend in Holland which keep their feet dry. Mr. Wilde, who belongs to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, says that in church on Sundays, instead of reading the usual notices _bout mothers' meetings and girls' clubs, he reads articles from any newspapers he received, in the last.mail. This keeps the-people in touch with what is going on in the: world. They were tremendously interested in the Coronation, and commissioned him to bring special gifts to England—a sweater and some stockings for the King, and a teazle mat for the Queen. Another thing h.p brought with him was a letter to Donald Glass, the young Tristan da Cunhan who died the other day in a London hospital, from his father, it did not reach the lad in time, and his father will probably not know of his son's death until Mr. Wilde takes him the news a year hence. Donald was the only person who has left the island in recent years, and the drastic change of climate and conditions of life was evidently too much for him. Mr. Jacob Johnson. .In the Arbitration Court at Melbourne recently Mr; Jacob Johnson applied for. an order directing certain Seamen's Union branch officials to comply with the rules and recognise him as general secretary of the Seamen's Union of Australasia. Chief Judge Dethridge reserved his decision. Johnson, who was booed off a Sydney platform during the recent shipping trouble in Australia, claimed that although he had been duly elected to the position this year, he was being prevented from occupying the office at headquarters in Sydney because of the hostility of the secretaries of the Sydney, Newcastle, and Port Adelaide branches.

The respondents to the application were C. Herbert (Sydney), R. Franklin (Newcastle), and H. O'Neill (Port Adelaide). They contended that although Johnson received the largest number of votes, he was declared by the Federal returning officer, W. J. Daley, to be ineligible to contest the election, because he was not a wageearner.

In his affidavit, Johnson claimed that the failure of the returning officer to declare the result of the poll did not affect the validity of his election. It was not the function of the returning officer to give a ruling regarding his eligibility. His duty was merely to declare the result of the vote. Johnson claimed that he is recognised as general secretary by the branch secretaries in Victoria, Western Australia, and Queensland. "No subterfuge should be allowed to prevent me functioning as general secretary," Johnson told the Court. "Only the personal spleen and vindictiveness of certain individuals are standing in the way." he said.

Chief Judge Jethridge said that on the broad facts it was clear that Johnson had been supported by the

Dr. Bertram Pollock, who filled a role in the Coronation ceremony, became Bishop of Norwich in 1910. He was born in 1863, the son of the late G. F. Pollock, formerly Senior Master of the Supreme Court and the Queen's and the King's Remembrancer. He is a grandson of the late Sir F. Pollock, Lord Chief Baron in his day. The Bishop was educated at the famous Charterhouse School, later becoming a Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. He was a master at Marlborough College from 1886 to 1893, and' was ordained at Salisbury in 1890. Leaving Marlborough he went to Wellington College, . where he remained until 1910, when he was offered and accepted the Bishopric of Norwich. He was at one time Chaplain-in-Ordinary to King Edward VII, and examining chaplain to the Bishop of Lichfield.-

Some years ago he . suggested a drastic overhaul of the marriage laws. At Oxford he was a distinguished athlete, and represented the University against Cambridge in the quarter mile. They call him the "Farmers' Bishop," for his interest in. agricultural affairs. Dr. Pollock was one of the leading churchmen opposed to the revised Prayer Book in the controversy a few years ago. To Commemorate his opposition to the Book, and also his marriage to his secretary. Miss Ryder, at the age of sixty-lour, Lord Brentford (then Sir William Joynson-Hicks), on behalf of many friends and admirers, presented him with a large limousine. Dr. H. Schacht. Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, Reichsbank President and Germany's Minister of Economics, who repeated Germany's plea for colonies at the opening of the German pavilion at the Paris Exhibition, is one of the most interesting and remarkable figures in German politics of the last decade. Since the advent to power of National Socialism it is he who provides the wherewithal to finance work promotion, Germany's defence programme, and the many cultural achievements of the new State. Dr. Schacht, with his impossibly high and decidedly old-fashioned pince-nez, provides an excellent figure for cartoonists. Dr. Schacht came from democratic surroundings, to which fact his very names bear witness, for they are the rarest collection to be found in Germany. His father, who had spent several years in the United States, was most enthusiastic over the political life there, and the democratic ideals embodied in the person of Horace Greely, the democratic candidate for the Presidency at that time. Accordingly, he named his son after Mr. Greely, while the northern name. Hjalmar, by which the now famous economist is generally known, he owes to his grandmother.

His public career began when, in 1918, he entered the National Bank as director of the department for securities, and after its fusion in 1922 with the Darmstadter Bank, made it one of the leading banks in the country. From there he entered the political

arena. With great zeal he took part in the discussions concerning the restoration of the mark. His proposals were so worthwhile that Dr. Stresemann wanted to make him Minister of Finance in the Cabinet formed after the Ruhr invasion, but political intrigue queered the pitch. Instead,, on November 7, 1923 Dr. Schacht was nominated Commissar for the Currency. A' few days later Herr Havenstein, then President of the Reichsbank, died, and Dr. Schacht was suggested as a successor. Dr Schacht managed to perform the miracle of currency stabilisation which preserved Germany from chaos and diS A s teffr atiback as 1919, Dr. Schacht had been occupied with the question of reparations. The final solution of the problem and the liberation of the German people from their burden, wer? the subjects which occupied his whole attention in the years that fol£wed. Thus, he was called upon to head the German delegation to _ the conference of experts held in Paris. m 1929, to negotiate a final settlement. : When Germany was forced to accept the Young Plan, Dr. Schacht, who had gone to Paris buoyed with hope, returned bitterly disappointed. During the negotiations in Paris there was no end to the friction off-stage between Dr Schacht and the German Government, and on his return this divergence of opinlon as to policy grew m March, W3O he refused to have a hand in the nolicy of a Government which tackled Us responsibilities half-heartedly, and VSeSb. no less than abroad his resignation caused no concern. On the contrary, he was looked upon as rowever'wafconvLed that tt» ■£ tern of that time was doomed. My fme wiH come," he said to a reporter oi " Amsterdam "Telegraaf," "when U is realised that things cannot go on close of 1930, he .rewhole future activity. He made up his mind there and then to give him Socialist leaders.