HONOURS IN BRITAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20364, 19 September 1929, Page 11

HONOURS IN BRITAIN.

"MISDIRECTED PATRONAGE."

THE COALITION NOMINEES. LONDON, Sept. 11. " It is difficult to trace any instance of Royal patronage so misdirected as the clumsy batch of honours forced on the Sovereign near the close of the regime of ,the Lloyd George Coalition Government."

This is the conclusion expressed by Sir George Arthur, private secretary to the late Earl kitchener, in his book, " The Life of the King." He describes Mr. Lloyd George's recommendations for honours as an unhappy occasion, suggesting that the Crown's reliance on the advice of even the most responsible Minister should have limitations.

"A murmur could not be repressed," Sir George writes, " when a personally estimable furniture dealer, the conduct of whose business had not been too successful for the original shareholders, was to enjoy the same rank as general officers who led large armies to victory." "Of a second nominee," the writer says:—"lt was stated that he gave evidence before the Income Tax Commissioner that in the middta of the war he transferred himself and his business, capitalised at £20,000,000, to a domicile abroad in order to escape taxation. A third nominee admitted dealings with the enen\y in wartime, though within official knowledge."

In the case of a fourth nominee the Earl of Birkenhead solved the difficulty by producing a letter in which the man declined a peerage. It is understood the letter was not secured without difficulty, as the man being deaf was for some time unable to gather whether the question concerned the increasing of the amount already deposited or the renouncing of the honour and the recovering of the cheque.