SIR JAMES ALLEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18244, 10 November 1922, Page 10

SIR JAMES ALLEN.

His }NQTiK AT GENEVA. JULIAN GRANDE'S TKIBUTK A "striking tribute is paid to the High "Commissioner for New Zealand, Sir James Allen, by Mr. Julian Grande, the Geneva correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph. Writing under date, September 30, he says his attention has been drawn , to, critioisms of Sir James by Dr. T. BL - J. Thacker, M.P., in the New Zealand House of Representatives. "During, the last three years that I have beep stationed at Geneva and attended the General Assemblies of the League of Nations," he continues, "I have had excellent- opportunities of seeing the good work done by the New Zealand delegate. As a result of Sir frames Allen's first year's work ah, enormous saving was brought about in/ the League's budget: Since then he was* chosen from among all Dominion .and English delegates to be on the permanent financial committee of the League of Nations. During the last three years eyery time he attended the Assembly of the League of Nations he worked at an average 16 hours a day, often sitting on committees until onei two, or three in the morning. "Sunday was his. only day of reßfc. but how did he spend it? Not by attending garden parties or, as Dr. Thacker said,, tarraddiddles on the Continent, but by taking wearisome journeys in out-of-the-way places among Swiss mountains to look up some lonely grave of a New Zealand soldier to see that the grave was cared for, and that finally it should be properly transformed into the one British cemetery at Vevey. Mrs. Grande used often to say to me, If the mothers in New Zealand only knew how tenderly Sir James Allen looks after the gravos of •• their loved ones, they would bless i him.' "Any other spare time that Sir James Allen had while in Geneva was spent *• not at garden parties, a3 Dr. Thacker 1 had tha audacity to say, but in trying jto secure for New Zealand Dr. Sphalinger's serum for the cure of consumption. ' "During the three years that Sir James I Allen attended the Assembly meetings in I Geneva I do not recollect a single garden | party or any other party-at which be i was'. present. I have heard, however, ! from, very humble New Zealand folk that he looked them up either in their lodgings or in their humble homes, had * oup of tea with them, and then invited them to his hotel." '','..' As to Dr. Thacker's statement that Sir James Allan's' expenses are larger than those of former, High Commissioners, Mr. Julian Grande contents himself by pointing out that the cost of living has doubled since 1914.. "As long as New Zealand can send to Europe such men as Sir James Allen she-wUI always take; an honoured place in tha Councils of Nations," he con«iude#* ,