FULFILMENT OF TRUST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23110, 9 February 1937, Page 10

FULFILMENT OF TRUST

VISIT OF COUNTESS HAIG

TO MEET HUSBAND’S COMRADES

AUTHOR OF INTIMATE BIOGRAPHY (Special to Daily Times) WELLINGTON, Feb. 8. Countess Haig, widow of Fieldmarshal Earl Haig, arrived at Wellington to-day by the Awatea from Sydney as a guest of the Government. The object of her coming to New Zealand is in the nature of the fulfilment of a trust. “For,” she said, “ my husband had intended to visit Australia and New Zealand because he had already visited South Africa and Canada, and he most earnestly wished to meet his brave comrades from Australia and New Zealand, who had fought under his leadership, in order that he might tell them what he had seen and thought of their gallantry in the war, to thank them in person for what they had done, and to urge them to join up with the British Empire Service League. That league he had just formed in South Africa. “My husband earlier was prevented from coming by the delicate state of health of our boy, who, when a child of nine months, was caught in the scourge of the 1918 influenza epidemic. The results of this were many operations and long illnesses. I had, indeed, pressed my husband to go out to Australia and New Zealand without me. I told him I could well look after our boy, but he wished me to be with him. In 1927 we both felt that we could leave the boy and arrangements were then made for my husband and myself to come to Australia and New Zealand in 1928, but my husband died in January that year. 1 have myself been unable to leave my children before. I was very sorry about this, because I knew how earnestly my husband had wanted to come to Australia and New Zealand, but now I have come, alas, alone.

“Another object of my visit to New Zealand,” the countess continued, “ is to speak about my book, ‘The Man I Knew,’ which is an intimate life of my husband, a book which no one else could write and as my husband would have wished —to devote all the profits derived from its sale to the benefit of exservicemen, their widows and their children in each area where thev live and where the book is distributed. This means that in New Zealand ex-servicemen and the widows and children of ex-service-men will receive assistance where it is needed from the profits derived from the sale of “ The Man I Knew in New Zealand, so that the assistance will depend upon the generosity of its reception in this Dominion. “It is my desire, too, that the press of New Zealand will quote ao copiously as is convenient from < The Man I Knew,’ in order that those who cannot afford to buy the book can read some of the life story of the late Douglas Haig. The boor, was published in Scotland by the Moray Press just before Christmas and I’m pleased to say that it has had and is having, a great sale. I was most anxious to have the life as full as possible, so I have included in the text many photographs of my husband from babyhood to the last photographs taken towards the end of his life.

“ Douglas strongly deprecated books that came out about him. He never intended to bring out anything at all. He had sent to me his diary day by day as he wrote it, and I had the idea that I should type it so as to have the diary all ready for him on his return home. He also sent me all the interesting letters he received from his Majesty the King, the Prime Minister, French generals and other distinguished persons. He wished me to keep these letters. I did so, but I did not sort them out or arrange them. He sent me military maps and despatches. I did not collate them then, for tha reason that I thought it better for him to do so himself when that bad day came when he should retire from the army. He would then have something in connection with his service to his country to occupy his mind.

“ Two years before he died, however, my husband heard that Lloyd George’s reminiscences were coming out and that they would contain matters that would force my husband for the good name of the army to take out parts of his diary and put them together, and as we v/ere finishing the work, Douglas pointed out to me what parts of the diary should be omitted from publication. He finished sorting out maps and letters which I had finished typing, but he did not live to begin collating those parts of his diary refuting gross perversions of the truth relating to his men, and which he knew Lloyd George would certainly bring out in his book. A biography which has already been published did not bring out the meaning as expressed by my husband in his diaries. He always counted on me as the one to edit his diaries and he put them in my special charge. Douglas would never have wished anything published that would be in the form of criticism or would give pain to a single soul. Indeed, many parts of my husband’s diaries and letters to me used by the biographer should never have been published, for my husband had remarked to that certain parts ‘ must not appear. Countess Haig is looking forward to her brief stay in New Zealand with great interest, “ for,” she said, “ when we met the delegates from Australia and New Zealand at the British Empire Service League, they vied with each other in extolling the beauties nf their respective countries. Those of Australia I have seen; those of New Zealand arc, I am sure, a pleasure to come. Personally, I am looking forward with particular interest to meeting again Sir Clutha Mackenzie, of whom f saw much when ho was at St. Dunstans.”