LEGENDARY FIGURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 150, 28 June 1938, Page 17

LEGENDARY FIGURE

* SIR MAURICE HANKEY QUIET EFFICIENCY ABLEST OF CIVIL SERVANT^ (From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, June 1. "The Man of a Thousand Secrets" is the ''legendary title that has been awarded to Sir Maurice Hankey, the 61-year-old secretary to the Cabinet, whose retirement from the Civil Service was announced yesterday. For 20 years he has' been in the closest possible contact with Cabinet affairs. He has served five Prime Ministers, and held three important secretaryships. In future he will represent the Government as a director of the Suez Canal. Described by Lord Baldwin as "The ablest civil servant any country could possess," Sir Maurice has enjoyed a career such as many may dream about but few achieve. He might have remained in obscurity. In 1895 he received his first commission in the Royal Marine Artillery. Five years later he was a captain on the Mediterranean Station, where he was noticed by Admiral Sir John Fisher (later Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Fisher). "Bursting with brains," was the Admiral's comment upon young Hankey on many occasions. Sir John took him to the Naval Intelligence Department at the Admiralty in 1902. Six years later he was appointed assistant-secre-tary of the Committee of Imperial Defence, and in 1912; at the age of 34, he became secretary. Than came the war, and with it Hankey became secretary to the War Council. In 1916 he was knighted. Mr. Lloyd George appointed him secretary of tlje War Cabinet. And the legend began. IN THE BACKGROUND. Since that time Sir Maurice, small, neat, dapper, lacking a 'Varsity accent, a person whom the majority of people would pass without a second glance 1 or thought, has occupied one of the most important positions in the country. But he has always remained in the ; background, watching Ministers come and go, "a permanent member of the Cabinet," as Professor Laski once declared. He has been: Assistant Secretary, Committee of Imperial Defence, 1908. Secretary to Committee of Imperial Defence since 1912. Secretary Cabinet since 1916. Clerk of the Privy Council since 1923. ' Secretary, General Imperial Conference. 1921, 1923, 1926, 1930, and 1937. British Secretary, Pieace Conference, 1919. " British Secretary, Washington Conference, 1921. British Secretary, .Genoa Conference, 1922. , ; British -Secretary, Reparations Conferenw, 1924. Secretary-General, Hague Confer-.ence,&929-30. Secretary-General, London Naval Conference, 1930. ■ Secretary-General, Lausanne Conference, 1932. Member of the' Governing Body of Rugby School.. EFFICIENT AND THOROUGH. 'No Whitehall official has ever received so many tributes from the great. Parliament recognised his war services by a grant of £25,000, in 1919. Usually these ; tokens' of thankfulness are limited to the generals. It is said of him that he has made his way by persuasion, and because he is always right. No one ever tripped him up on a fact For instance, when he gave evidence before the Arms Commission as the champion of the private. Merchants of Death he went back to the Third Crusade. and the twelfth century for the basis of his case. He has always been thoroughly and extremely efficient, with a prodigious ihemory and power for work. He has lived only for his work, and for his family circle down at Limpsfield, in Surrey. He has a reputation for never going anywhere or 1 seeing anybody, for rising at 6.30- every morning, winter and, summer, then swimming and •walking precisely a mile to keep himself fit. It is also declared that he has a flair for using his Ministers, for getting the best out of them all, for smoothing out quarrels and persuading seemingly irreconcilable personalities to work together in sweet reason. Nevertheless, Sir Maurice is not believed to possess a great original mind. He has not that grasp of affairs which originates constructive policies. His genius is to absorb and co-ordinate other men's contributions to a problem, to produce from their apparent conflict a sensible and workable compromise on which all are only ready er jiugh to agree. SOME MORE BELIEFS. Another belief is that he always took the notes of Cabinet meetings in a cipher of his own devising, and went round afterwards destroying any slips of paper left on the Cabinet table. It is said, too, that he even tore up the blotters; and that he has kept a diary— in secret cipher, like that other great civil servant, Samuel Pepys—which will be revealed in a hundred years' time. Sir Maurice has always denied this tale with a good deal of heat. Time after time during "Crisis" conferences in Whitehall, crowds have gathered in Downing Street to cheer as the popular leaders left No. 10. After they had all gone, and the crowd had dispersed, Sir Maurice usually -emerged, i the last, with no cheers to greet him. Night after night he has often worked I late at his office in Whitehall Gardens ] with the charwomen only for company. They all liked him, for he had a pleasant way of saying, "Well, good-j night, Mrs. Miggs. Sorry'to have kept you!" Sir Maurice has had comparatively little time for his family for there has always been so much to do and so little time to do it. Lady Hankey, whom Sir Maurice in 1903, is a South African, and as quiet and unassuming a lady as he is a gentleman. They have three sons (two of them in "fbe Diplomatic Service) and a daugh- %=• i"ho married Sir Ernest Benn's son and lives near her parents at Limpsfield. Sir Maurice reached the retiring age for senior civil servants in April of last year. His new appointment, which will date from August 1, will fill the vacancy caused by the death in April of Sir John Davies. Sir Maurice's present salaries are stated to amount to £3000 a year. Directors of the Suez Canal receive no fixed salary but are paid a percentage of the company's earnings. In 1936 they received about £5000. The Government appoints three directors to the international company which manages the canal. The other Government directors are Sir lan Malcolm and the Earl of Cromer. DEFENCE committee changes. The resignation of Sir Maurice Hankey will lead to a complete reorganisation of the work of the Committee of Imperial Defence. The recent creation of the Ministry of Co-ordination has so.altered the machinery that the system of working en the Committee of. ; Imperial Defence requires adjustment. Sir Maurice's duties for the Cabinet,