SIR HARRY BATTERBEE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 59, 11 March 1939, Page 10

SIR HARRY BATTERBEE

ARRIVAL IN WELLINGTON

FIRST HOLDER OF OFFICE

The High Commissioner for Great Britain in New Zealand, Sir Harry Fagg Batterbee, arrived in Wellington by the Limited express from Auckland this morning to take up his new duties. He was accompanied by Lady Batterbee and Miss Biggar, Sir Harry's niece. The Permanent Head of the Prime Minister's Department, Mr. C. A. Berendsen, travelled with the party from Auckland. Soon ) after his arrival, Sir Harry made an official call on his Excellency the Governor-General (Viscount Galway) at Government House. On Monday he will call on the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage). He will be tendered a civic reception on. Monday, and will also be the guest of the Government at luncheon. j FOURTH APPOINTMENT. Sir Harry Batterbee is ./the first holder of the office of High Commissioner in New Zealand. The appoint-! ment, which was announced in July of last year, was made with a view to the further development of the system of communication and consultation between his Majesty's Governments, the importance of'which has been empha-, sised at successive Imperial Confer-! ences. The Inter-Imperial Relations Committee of the Imperial Conference in 1926 declared that the Governments represented were \"impressed with the desirability of developing a system of personal contact, both in London and in the Dominion capitals, to supplement the present system of inter-communi-cation and the reciprocal supply of information on affairs requiring joint consideration." After this conclusion the appointment of a High Commissioner in. Canada was made m 1928. This was followed in 1930 by one for South Africa, and in 1935 by a third for. Australia. As a result of Sir Harry's appointment, his Excellency the Governor-General, who previously represented his Majesty the King and the British Government, will represent the King, and Sir Harry Batterbee will represent the British Government. The new British High Commissioner is not making his first acquaintance with New Zealand. He was political secretary to Vice-Admiral Field, commanding the Special Service Squadron, which made an Empire cruise and visit- | ed New Zealand in 1924, and he served in a similar capacity to his Majesty the King when, as the Duke of York, he visited New Zealand in 1927. Sir Harry Batterbee, who received the C.M.G. in 1918, the K.C.V.O. in 1927', and the K.C.M.G. in 1931, was born in 1880. He was educated at Faversham Grammar School and Hertford College, Oxford, where he graduated MA., and entered the Colonial Office in i 905. In 1909 he married a daughter of the late Rev. John Harding. ' From 1916 to 1919 he was private secretary, to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the Rt. Hon. Walter H. Long, M.P., Assistant Secretary of the Dominions Office from 1925 to 1930, and since then Assistant Under-Secre-tary of State, Dominions Office. As deputy secretary of the Imperial Conferences of 1930 and 1937 he made personal contacts with' New Zealand's representatives which are bound to stand him in good stead in his new post of United Kingdom High Commissioner.