“LORD DERBY” ARRIVES

Evening Star, Issue 22596, 13 March 1937, Page 2

“LORD DERBY” ARRIVES

COMEDY IN EGYPT The following story is going the rounds of the clubs and causing no little amusement at the expense of the department concerned (writes the Cairo correspondent of the ‘Observer ). Some 10 days ago, it appears, a cable was received from London by the Mimster of Agriculture stating that Lora Derby would arrive at Port Said the following'Sunday and requesting that he might he met on arrival.' The cable was signed Secretary, Department ,of Agriculture. , . . The officials were somewhat puzzled as to why such a cable announcing the arrival of a distinguished visitor should be addressed to their department, and they referred the matter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The latter, not knowing anything about the arrival of Lord Derby either, inquired at the Embassy, only to find that the staff there were also without any information. Someone suggested that perhaps, as Lord Derby was a large landed proprietor, he might be coming out to Euvnt to inquire into some agricultural question, and that that was the reason the cable was addressed to the Minister of Agriculture in Cairo by his opposite number in London. . . , ; This explanation seeming quite plausible. and Lord Derby being a man of position who should be received with proper'dignity, an official was delegated to°proceM to Port Said to await the arrival of the one ship expected there on the Sunday from England,. In due course the ship armed, and the delegate, adequately, dressed, proceeded on board by special launch, accompanied by the necessaiy orderlies to attend to His Lordship’s baggage. He sought the captain, and, telling him the object of his visit, was conducted by his orders to where His Lordship was at that moment. To his surprise he was taken down below decks, and finally brought up face to face with an enormous bull, the product of the “ Lord Derby estate, sent out to Egypt at the request of the Minister of Agriculture, which apparently never connected the cable with the order it had placed through the intermediary of the British Government.