SIR CHARLES FERGUSSON.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 31 October 1924, Page 8

SIR CHARLES FERGUSSON.

HIS SUCCESS AS A SOLDIER.. j LONDON, Sept. 13. An English Army officer, wfio has a command in England and who is well known in New Zealand, - writes thus of the new Governor-General:

‘‘General Sir Charles Fergusson’s soldiering record is such a fine one that it is difficult to do justice to it in a. short appreciation. All his regimental soldiering vtas done in that most distinguished regiment, the Grenadier Guards, of which he was adjutant. He then went to Egypt, and, after much campaigning, in which he was seriously wounded, he became Adjutant-General of the Egyptian Army. When he came home he commanded a battalion of the Grenadier Guards, and, after serving on the staff and in command in Ireland, and as Inspector of Infantry at the War Office, he took a division to France. He commanded his division with such success that he was appointed to the command of an Army Corps, serving in that capacity till the end of the war.

“In the final advance it happened that my. Army Corps was alongside of his, and it was my good fortune to serve with him again after the war, when he had been specially selected by Field-Marshal Earl Haig to be the first Military Governor of Cologne. This difficult task he performed with the same success which had attended his commands throughout the war, and when eventually the garrison at Cologne was so reduced that there was no longer any place in it for an officer of his seniority and standing, it was with the greatest regret that the British Army of the Rhine was deorived of his services. There is no General Officer in the Army for whom the British Army has a higher respect, and his soldiering career is a good augury for a most successful GovernorGeneralship of your eountrv. Everyone in the British Army will be glad to think that it is represented in such a capacity by a man for whose career, fine record of service and professional qualifications they have so high a regard.” ,

A New Zealand officer of high rank, who came into touch with Sir Charles when the latter was Governor of Cologne, says: “His reputation as a successful Corps Commander in France will he known to those who followed the operations, and surely a large measure of the credit is due’ to him . for the satisfactory relations established between the inhabitants of the occupied territory and our troops—relations which have continued satisfactory. “For New Zealand, as for this country, defence is first and foremost a naval question. Still, after so able a sailor as Lord Jellicoe, perhaps we can afford—for once—to fall back on the junior service for a Governor-General.”