In the Public Eye Mr. K. Gibson

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 19, 22 July 1939, Page 26

In the Public Eye

Mr. K. Gibson

Some people have been saying that we in this country are not well served with American news, says a "Manchester Guardian" correspondent. Here is an illustration: This paragraph will, I believe, be the first in the English Press to refer to an administrative decision made several weeks ago by President Roosevelt which may Have vast .consequences for his people—and, by example, for other peoples too! .He has decided to set up the largest Government unit for social welfare and service that the world has ever known. As from July 1 he is bringing together those great creations of the New Deal, the Social Security Board, the C.C.C.. and the National Youth Administration, and is amalgamating them with the Public Health Service and the Department of Education. The welfare branches of the Department of Labour are also to be transferred. The first item, the Social Security Board, already covers Federal old age pensions (contributory for 40,000,000 workers), unemployment insurance, and several categories of Poor Law service, including the old, the widows, and children. It is as if we in Great Britain had realised that the social policies of the Ministry of Health, the Board of Education, and the Ministry of Labour should be much more closely co-ordi-nated instead of being handled in "watertight" and often competitive departments. At present no statutory body, short of the British Cabinet, surveys the whole field of our social services and keeps it in order —a full-time job! Mr. Roosevelt's new departmental colossus is to be called the Federal Security Agency, with an administrator at £2500 a year as America's "Welfare Officer No. 1." I understand that "he" may be a woman, Miss Josephine Roche, one of the most trusted of the heads of the New Deal. It is said that a.. nation-wide scheme of medical care for workers and their families is to be the first new* objective. If this great department turns out to be as potent in action as it appears to be in form, then our British social services will have to look to their laurels. Mr. Christopher Hassall. Mr. Christopher Hassall, 27-year-old poet son of Mr. John Hassall, the artist, has been awarded the £100 Hawthornden prize this year for his book of poems, "Penthesperon." t The prize was founded in 1919 by Miss Alice Warfender for the best work of imaginative literature by an author : under 41. The presentation was made by Mr. John Masefield, the PoetLaureate, at a meeting at the Aeolian Hall. -London. Mr. Hassall told a representative of the "Daily Telegraph" that he began writing poetry when he joined a theatrical touring company, as an actor, after he left Oxford at the age of 21. "We were touring Egypt when I began to write the poems which appeared in my first book, 'Poems of Two Years,'" he said. "Some of those poems had first been written in my scrap book at school, and I touched them up for the first volume." Since then he had published other volumes of poetry and two poetic dramas, "Devil's Dyke,'? produced at Oxford, and "Christ's Comet," a religious work, produced at Canterbury. When he was asked if he was making his living by his poetry, Mr. Hassall laughed. Poetry was not profitable enough for that, he said. "I am writing lyrics for musical plays," he added, and said he wrote the lyrics for Ivor Novello's "The Dancing Years." Mr. Hassall was at Brighton College before he went to Oxford. At the university he took part in several O.U.D.S. productions. Mr. Masefield said Mr. HassaU's work showed great imaginative quality, and a swift and greedy eye for poetic subjects. Mr. John Gielgud recalled Mr. HassaU's "Romeo," when he produced "Romeo and Juliet" at Oxford. Lieut.-Col. J. A. Herbert, M.P. The King has officially approved the appointment of Lieutenant-Colonel John Arthur Herbert, M.P.. as Governor of Bengal on the conclusion of Sir John Woodhead's tenure of the office early in November. Lieutenant-Colonel J. A. Herbert, who was born in 1895, is a son of the late Sir Arthur James Herbert, G.C.V.0., and a nephew of the late Lord Treowen. He was educated at Wellington, and Harvard. U.S.A. In 1916 he joined the Royal Horse Guards as lieutenant, became major in 1930, and retired in 1934. From 1926 to 1928 he was A.D.C. to Lord Halifax, when Viceroy of India. In 1934 he was elected Conservative M.P. for Monmouth, and since 1937 he has been an Assistant Whip (unpaid). In 1924 he married Lady Mary FoxStrangeways, daughter of the sixth Earl of Ilchester. His appointment will create a vacancy in the Monmouthshire Division, but as it does not take effect until the autumn no by-election will arise should there be a General Election before then. The figures at the General Election were:— Lieut.-Col. J. A. Herbert (C.) .... 23,202 M. Foot (Lab.) 13,454 C. majority 9,908 If, however, there is no General Election then the number of by-elections pending totals eight. The others are in Portsmouth South, necessitated by the elevation to the peerage of Sir Henry Cayzer, whose appointment to the Manor of Northstead was gazetted recently; Belfast East, necessitated by the elevation to the peerage of Captain Herbert Dixon, Colne Valley, Brecon and Radnor, Caerphilly, North Cornwall, and Hythe.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" Let's hope it's not a boy when Mr. K. Gibson, of Auckland, one of the Dominion's two chick-sexing experts, is around, for he's death on boy fowls. Mr. Gibson thinks male chicks are just "dumb clucks," unworthy of grain, "greens" —and even existence. He returned in the Wanganella this week from Sydney, where he polished his chicken consciousness so well that the Department of Agriculture passed him 97§ per cent, in its examination, says the Auckland "Star." Disciple of Yogo, the Japanese maestro in the modern art of chicken-sexing, he knows all the answers when it comes to putting the Indian sign on a boy chicken. His profession is the difference between a paying and a non-paying poultry farm. That's why Mr. Gibson, at 9s a 100 birds sexed, can rake in £22 10s daily by handling 5000 birds at the height of the season. Nice work? Yes. if you can get it. And it's worth the money! Evolution has failed to weed out the non-laying male for the poultry farmers. So Mr. Gibson does it for them. When Mr. Gibson gets alongside a chicken farm there is considerable pother and a deal of clucking among mothers and fathers of the poultry community. Mrs. Boadicea BuffOrpington kisses her brood a hasty good-bye and hopes they are all daughters. Mr. Chanticleer Buff-Orpington, with the parental perspiration of fowlish anguish trickling from his rich comb, strides anxiously hither and yon, waiting for the dread ultimatum. How many offspring will get the axe? Meanwhile Mr. Gibson is giving the family the once over. "How is it done?" asked the reporter who interviewed the expert. Reporters are like that. Inquisitive fellows. Mr. Gibson turned a delicate pink and mur- j mured something about the beauty of Rangitoto. Evidently he liked the scenery- But to get back to proceedings in the coop. Mr. 'Gibson emerges from the hen house. The rooster stops his pacing. "You're the father of 437 dear little hens," says Mr. Gibson.^ What happens to the dear little roos-" ters? Well, Mr. Gibson employs no euphemisms. He's seen thousands of them get it in the traditional place. Better be born a "Gibson girl," you eggs. It's healthier. Wang Keh-mhi. A man in an' unenviable job appears Wang Keh-min, head of the "Provisional Government zz the Chinese Republic." While the Japanese, who put him in nominally the highest office of his forty-year political career, term him "one of the few real Chinese patriots," most of his fellow-country-men regard him as a traitor. Yet foreigners who know him well whisper that in his heart of hearts he despises the Japanese as invaders who one day must be driven out, and it is a fact that he limits as far as he can the number with whom he must associate. Just what kind of a man is it that carries on, as it were, on the brink of the deep blue sea? When I went to see, after waiting a week for an appointment, writes Bradford Coolidge in the "Christian Science Monitor," I found a friendly little fellow bowing me to a seat. He wore an anxious smile. "I rise about 6.30 and retire about 11.30, spending most of the hours between at my desk. I have no time for diversions. I used to enjoy reading and calligraphy, but I don't do much of either now. Years ago I, played cards and (with a laugh) was always very fortunate. But I gave up all that at 50. Hobbies? I have collected quite a few Chinese porcelains. They are stored away and I haven't seen them for years." Other than routine contacts, Mr. Wang sees very few people. This is

[largely due to fears for his life: In March, 1938, a gang of Chinese sprayed his car with bullets on the streets of j Peking. One bullet wounded his chauffeur, one killed his Japanese companion, but the one meant for Mr. Wang lodged in the folds of his .fur coat between his arm and body. Since then the Chief Executive has lived as well as worked in the big Foreign Affairs building, while 50 guards, many j armed with sub-machine-guns, stand \ watch. ■ ''''*! "Members of my family come to see j me now and then from my home two blocks away. (I have eleven daughters and a son, enough to start a school). But of my friends, many have gone south. The few remaining in Peking do not call on me because- they would j incur the;suspicions of the guards. As! for formal affairs, I go out to no dinners and give no dinners. I really enjoy the lack of incessant social affairs, j Lonely? Yes, but I am so busy that I do not notice it." Yet "his Excellency," as the punctilious translator referred to Mr. Wang,! does not appear discontented.. If he is virtually a prisoner, ■ Chinese statesmen often have been known to go into seclusion. He indicated that he harbours no anticipations of resigning and wants to remain right here in Peking. If he wanted to live anywhere else, he certainly would have the funds to do so, for he is one of the wealthiest men in China. But France, the one foreign country in which he has resided except Japan, he found "too busy." . So Mr. Wang stays on,,a patriot or a traitor, depending on the point of view. Is there a chance, he will fool-both Chinese and Japanese? Some acquainted with the workings of the Chinese mind do not think it impossible. The idea is this: Chinese characteristically yield to force and wait for it to spend itself rather than trying to resist. They have learned how from centuries of experience with invasion and, more recently, colonisation. Now Japan comes with another kind of pressure, labelled "The New Order in East-Asia." Is it not better to yield once more, to spare China the havoc of resistance? Especially if one never forgets he is yielding temporarily, for expediency. . . . Has Mr. Wang that idea?