EXHIBITION COMMISSIONER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19009, 3 November 1923, Page 15

EXHIBITION COMMISSIONER.

APPOINTMENT OF MR A. F. ROBERTS (Pm United Press Association.! WELLINGTON, November 2. Very general approval is expressed here in the Government’s choice of Mr A. F. Roberts, C.M.G., as New Zealand Commissioner to the British Empire Exhibition A large number of applications were received for tho position, but it is understood that many of them had not very high qualifications for the position. Mr Roberts is very well known in Dunedin, where he was born, and also in Christchurch. Like his father, Sir John Roberts he was educated at Merchiston School, Edinburgh, later going to Cambridge University. He got his Rugby blue in hisffirst year at Cambridge. He joined the firm of Muriity, Roberts, and Co. at Dunedin in 1903, but in 1910 went north to the branch at Napier. He has also been in the firm’s Wellington branch. He has always taken a keen interest in field sports, and is an enthusiastic golfer, lie is also a cricketer and a lawn tennis player. From 1914 to 1918 Mr Roberts was in charge of the embarkation of troops of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was tho first president of the Rotary Club, and is an active member of the Navy League, a member of the Council of the New Zealand Chamber of Commerce, director of the Australian Mutual Provident Company, and a director of the Wellington Meat Export Company. Latterly he has entered local Solitics as a member of the Lower Hutt orough Council. Mr Roberts, who will be accompanied by his wife, who like her husband is helcl in high regard, hopes to leave for London about the middle of December.