WHY IT WAS WRITTEN.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 1075, 23 July 1924, Page 10

WHY IT WAS WRITTEN.

MORGOT’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. WANTED MONEY BADLY. According to an interview which she gave to a newspaper in British Columbia, Mrs Asquith wrote her autobiography because sho badly needed monev. “Ton see,” sho said, “after I had married Mr Asquith, and when he became Prime Minister, we were not exactly wealthy. To bo perfectly truthful, my husband hadn’t a sou in the world —not a sou, with the exception of £SOOO lie received as salary. Of course, he owned stocks and things, but when he became Prime Minister he turned in every single share stock which could have been touched by the Government just as a matter of principle. BIG OFFER FOR DIARY. “I had £SOOO a year of my own, and this, together with my husband’s salary, was what we had to live on. Anyone can tell you that living at No. 10 Downing-street is rather expensive. Of course, we spent quite as much as we possessed. We had to. “1 novel- had the faintest idea of publishing my autobiography. Ever since I had been a child 1 had kept a diary. . . . Somehow a report of this diary got about London, and one day a publisher whom 1 knew only slightly came to me and made me the extraordinary offer of £IO,OOO if I would permit him to publish it. Why, I thought tho man had gone mad! It was the shock of my life. “When I recovered my speech I informed him that I most emphatically consented to the publication. Not only that, but as I wanted money badly I would get to work immediately to put it into shapo for printing.”