A NOVEL APPOINTMENT.

Evening Star, Issue 21991, 29 March 1935, Page 8

A NOVEL APPOINTMENT.

The appointment of Mr John Buchan, one of the foremost liteiiiry men of the day, to be Governor-General of Canada, has at first blush the appearance of following an American example. The Americans have no dominions in the British sense, but they have ambassadors, and the portal to an ambassadorship has not seldom been literary merit. James Russell Lowell was an exemplary ambassador to London. Mr W. H. Page, the war time ambassador, was a publisher; Colonel Harvey, who followed him, was a journalist. Mr Henry Van Dyke, the poet, was Minister* to the Netherlands, On a lower plane, Bret Harte and William Dean Howells held consular posts, the first in Britain, the second at Venice. But the American example has nothing to do with this case. The fact is, Mr John Buchan has been so successful as a writer that one easily forgets how much he has been besides. Politics, apparently—and Empire politics—divided his heart with literature when, as a young man, he was private secretary to Lord Milner in South Africa and wrote ‘ A Lodge in the Wilderness.’ For eight years lie has represented the Scottish Universities in the House of Commons, and he was Lord High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland, an important Government post. All that is novel, therefore, in Mr Buchan’s new appointment is the fact that he is a commoner, and it is well known that the Canadians have no more than a limited love, at least for hereditary titles. Lord Bryce, another literary politician, was a commoner while he

served as Ambassador to Washington, hi a like atmosphere. Another thing one forgets easily about Mr Buchan is that he is so much more than a popular novelist on his literary side. His “shpekers ” ‘ The Thirty-nine Steps,’ ‘ Greenmantle,’ and ‘ Mr Standfast ’ were such admirable entertainment, and so suited, in their recklessness of invention combined with their sturdy patriotism, to relieve sharp cares in the tragic days when they were written, that they tend to overshadow ‘ The Moon Endureth ’ and like fantasies of more literary charm, if not the three model biographies. The quality of these last has been “ an equal dower of freshness and of staying power,” combined with that balance and breadth of view which have always been prime attributes of Mr Buchan, especially fitting him for his new position. Canada has a novelist of her own whose popularity is Empirewide —“ Ralph Connor,” of ‘ The Sky Pilot ’ and ‘ Black Rock,’ otherwise the Rev. C. \V. Gordon —who we are glad to know is now in New Zealand, and should soon he in Dunedin. His fresh and wholesome stories have fully deserved their vogue, and the ministernovelist and Mr Buchan, who drew his most splendid climax from Bunyan when “ all the trumpets sounded for him ou the other side,” will know how to appreciate each other. .