AMBASSADOR TO BERLIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19455, 11 October 1926, Page 11

AMBASSADOR TO BERLIN.

LORD D'ABEENOFS POST. RETIREMENT IMMINENT. WORK FOR RECONSTRUCTION. By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright. A. and N.Z. BERLIN. Oct. & The British Ambassador to Germany, Lord D'Abernon, who is about to retiro from that post,, was accorded military honours on the occasion of his farewell visit to President Hindenburg. Lord D'Abernon paid a tribute to Germany's economic recovery and the improvement in her political relations with the other Powers. In replying the President thanked Lord D'Abernon for his efforts to re-establish Germany among the nations of Europe, especially for his share in the Locarno proceedings. Edgar Vincent, created Baron D'Abernon in 1914, was born at Slmfold, Sussex, in August, 1857. He is the younger son of Sir Frederick Vincent, and his family has played an important part in the financial world. Lord D'Abernon was educated at Eton, passed the examination at the head of the list for the appointment at Constantinople of a student dragoman, but did not take up tho post. Instead, in 1877, he became an officer in the Coldstream Guards, but left the Army in 1882 after holding two non-military appointments in the Balkans, where his knowledge of languages proved valuable —he was joint author in his early days of a grammar of modern Greek. Entering the diplomatic service he was stationed in Egypt, where he represented tho British, Belgian and Dutch bondholders of tho Ottoman public debt, and in 1883 was appointed president of the council. In the same year he became financial adviser to the Egyptian Government—a post he held until 1889. He then became governor of the Imperial Ottoman Bank in Constantinople, holding this influential position until 1897, in addition to that of British representative on the administration of the Ottoman public debt. In 1897, after an attempt had been made on his life in Constantinople, he left the diplomatic service and entered the House of Commons, he sat as a Conservative from June, 1889, till 1906. From June, 1915, to February, 1920, he was chairman of the Liquor Traffic Control Board set up during the war. In June, 1920, he .was sent to Berlin as the first British Ambassador since the war. His appointment was regarded as temporary and arose out of his experience as a financier, which, it was thought, would be valuable in connection with the economic problems which had to be dealt with by Germany. A section of the German press, in view of his role in Turkey, inclined to the idea that he had been put in as a sort of liquidator to control Germany's finances, but these fears were not realised and Lord D'Abernon proved a popular ambassador, so much so that ho was strongly attacked as pro-German by various French newspapers. Lord D'Abernon's friends of his own nationality are as well aware as the Germans with whom he has come in official contact of the dearest aim which inspired him when he took up the difficult office in 1920, and which he himself is con- • vinced has been achieved,'said the Berlin correspondent of the Observer recently. The breaking down of the barriers of national hostility and popular prejudice was not easy in Germany after the bitter feelings inspired by the war and increased by the peace. He has said himself that when ho compares the atmosphere that surrounded him then with that of to-day he finds complete satisfaction with this part of his task. This is an " imponderable," and due to a fortunate personality and fine tact, but practical examples of his work were felt in the rapid improvement of tho service of news and transport which spread the truth so rapidly that' the false rumours and wild statements born of tho general dislocation were quashed before great international harm was done. Lord D'Abernon's conviction that neither prosperity at home in Germany nor any adequate and permanent payment of reparations could be brought about without a stabilised currency was shared by all with any knowledge on currency questions. He will leave Germany with this part of his task accomplished, but his belief in her future appears to ho very jnnch bound up with the conditions surrounding, and more or less impeding, her foreign trade. Lord D'Abernon took a leading part in initiating the negotiations which culminated in tho Locarno Pact. His successor in Berlin will be Sir Ronald Lindsay, until recently British Ambassador to Turkey.