AN INTERESTING ADDRESS

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12197, 23 July 1925, Page 9

AN INTERESTING ADDRESS

Miss Nellie M. Bcanlan, one of the .best known of New Zealand women journalists, lectured to a delighted audienoe at the Hastings Women’s Community Club on Saturday evening on her experiences abroad,. and in a racy, witty, and interesting address described her meetings with many notable people, referring particularly to the Disarmament Conference at Washington, and to famous men and women writers.

Earl Balfour was a man who repre-sented-mbst- truly the-courtly English gentleman,. M, Briand was eloquent and forceful. William Jennings Bryan, who, seated in the gallery, had been loud in his applause at the Frenchman’s speech, discovered when the speech was interpreted, that he had been most enthusiastic in his applause of the things of which he most bitterly disapproved. Mr Sastri, the t Indian, was the most; able and appealing speaker at the conference. Mr Baldwin had an astounding knowledge of the showed , a keen interest in' !Is ~doinga. , SOME LITERARY PEOPLE Miss Scanlab’s descriptions of liter-ary-people -were, - -perhaps; the-meet.en-ioyable part of her address. H. G. Wells, she, said, was short andipodgy, with unpleasantly fat hands and a squeaky voice. Meeting him was something of a-- disillusionment. Sir Philip Gibbs was a great and splendid man, without prejudice and without hatred. "Sir -Philip’s first scoop bad been the detection of 1 -the Dr. Cook hoax. Gibbs then had been the only one of the journalists to question' the famous ’(or infamous) doctor’s ere* dentials. Hugh Walpole was horn ih Auckland, where his father, now Bishop of-Edinbargh, was a curate. He, with his father, left New Zealand when he was seven, but in sentiment was still very much a New Zealander 1 . He had a deep interest in her welfare, in Maori history and .legend, and in all that had to do with his native country.