VISIT TO DOMINION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20426, 30 November 1929, Page 15

VISIT TO DOMINION.

TRIP PLANNED NEXT YEAR.

NEW VICE-REGAL HOSTESS

NOTED ENGLISH BEAUTY

It is interesting to observe, in connection with the appointment of lh& new Governor-General, that Lord Bledisloe had planned to visit New Zealand early in the New Year. He was to be the leader of a party of British farmers and landowners, who are to tour the Dominion in February and March to study New Zealand farming conditions. He had actually booked his passage by the Remuera, leaving England on January 17. He will be accompanied by Lady Bledisloe. In her Government House will have a charming hostess who has long manifested a particularly keen interest in philanthropic work. I«idy Bledisloe is the younger daughter of the first Baron Glantawa, of Swansea, better known as Sir John Jones Jenkins, M.P., u Liberal politician of South Wales, a great industrialist and philanthropist. The Hon. Elaine Jenkins, before her marriage, like her father, was a well-known philanthropist and promoter of Welsh home industries. She was also a noted beauty, and her portrait is included in "Types of English Beauty," a volume published in London in 1920. Lord Bledisloe was first married in 1898 to the Hon. Bertha Lopes, daughter of the first Lord Ludlow. She died three and a-half years ago, and the second marriage took place in April of last year. Lord Bledisloe's heir is the Hon. B. L. Bathurst, who was born in 1899, and there is a second son and a daughter. Lord Bledisloe plays golf and is a keen sportsman, being particularly interested in shooting. Ho is a verderer of the Forest of Dean.

The energetic work performed by him in the interests of agriculture is well illustrated in a eulogistic notice in the Times

in January, 1928, when it was announced that he was resigning his post as Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture to take up an appointment as chairman of the Imperial Grasslands Association, which was being formed under the auspices of Imperial Chemical Indus tries, Ltd., with the object of impnj.ing the pasture land, both of Britain and of the Empire overseas. In view of the importance of grassland farming Lord Bledisloo expressed the opinion at that, time that he coulcl best serve the interests of agriculture by taking up this new work, with which it was later found inexpedient to proceed. The agricultural correspondent of the Times wrote: "The news of Lord Bledisloe's resignation will be the cause of keen regret to his departmental colleagues and to all who realise the value of his services to agriculture. From a comparatively early ageche has spared no efforts to make himself conversant with the practical and scientific sides of the industry, and his official post was a recognition of the untiring zeal with which during the 25 years of his public service he de, Voted himself to its manifold interests.

"It is, indeed, largely to the almost excessive zeal of his labours on behalf of British farming and British farmers that his retirement from official life must be attributed It fias long been evident to those with whom he worked that ho was overtaxing his strength. But he was so fired with the determination to bring about changes which he considered essential for the continued prosperity of British agriculture that he continued, except for short intervals when he \vas laid aside by illness, to undertake with the same energy all the work that came his way. Last year, when his medical advisers insisted in curtailing his activities by one-half, he was president of the Imperial Agricultural Research Conference and chairman of the Royal Commission on Land Drainage, as-well as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture." Vt