VICE-REGAL POST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22579, 18 November 1936, Page 13

VICE-REGAL POST

NEW GOVERNOR-GENERAL SOUTH AFRICAN MINISTER LONDON, Nov. Hi It is announced that Mr. Patrick Duncan will succeed the Karl of Clarendon as Governor-General of South Africa. Mr. Duncan has been Minister of M ines in the South African Cabinet since 1933 and previously held a number of Ministerial posts. Although Mr. Duncan was not born in South Africa, for many years he has been resident in the Union and has been closeiv interested in its problems. He was born in Banffshire. Scotland, in 1870 and after finishing his education at Oxford he entered the British Civil Service in 1894. He was appointed to the Inland Revenue Department under Sir A. (afterwards Lord) Milner. After the Boer War, Lord Milner became High Commissioner for South Africa and Mr. Duncan was chosen among others to help in the building up of a new administration in those regions. In a few months he became Treasurer of the Transvaal and from ] 903-06 he was appointed Colonial Secretary. For-a time he was acting Lieutenant-Governor of the Union. He had meanwhile studied law and become a barrister, and while engaged in law practice he was interested in the acute political problems which followed the South African War, owing to the bitter feeling between the British and the Boers. He was a supporter of General Smuts, who, though he had fought against the British, held that it was necessary to work for conciliation. Mr. Duncan, after his election to the South African Parliament, was Minister of the Interior from 1921-24. He was Minister of Mines in the Coalition Cabinet formed in 1933, of which the Boer leader, General Hertzog, was Premier and General Smuts Minister of Justice.