LORD CHELMSFORD.

Otago Witness, Issue 3773, 6 July 1926, Page 23

LORD CHELMSFORD.

N.S.W. AGENT-GENERAL. AN UNEXPECTED APPOINTMENT. (From Oob Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY. June 24. Mr Lang’s appointment of Viscount Chelmsford as Agent-General for New South Wales astounded not only the tfommunity generally, but not a few of his own party as well. Mr Lang’s plans, it is said, were kept so secret that even some of his own Ministers were unaware of them. One wonders, too, what the industrial wing of Labour in New South Wales thinks of the appointment of a peer as a choice of a • Government which nas to obey the decrees of the Trades Hall. It was as Governor of Queensland that Lord Chelmsford demonstrated something of the firmness of his qualities when he. refused to fall in with a Labour Premier’s plans for swamping the Legislative Council. Whether he will now be more eager to further the interests of a Labour Government than those of any other Ministry remains to be seen. The Let that Lord Chelmsford took office in the Ramsay MacDonald Government, possibly weighed with Mr Lang in making the appointment although one of the Sydney newspapers gently reminds’ the Premier that Lord Chelmsford still describes himself in “Who’s Who" as a Conservative, and recalls the latter’s speech when, in the House of Lords, after his appointment b Mr Ramsay MacDonald. ne is reported to have said that he entered the Ministry not as one who took the Labour view, and that Mr MacDonald understood exactly his position. While it may be something of a comedown for a man who has held so many high offices, including that of Viceroy of India, to accept the post of Agent-general, the general view is tnat it is a very smart move on the part of Mr Lang to get tne services of a man who can exercise an influence in quarters which ordinarily are extremely difficult of access. Mr Land’s overtures to the Imnerial authorities in connection with the abolition of the Upper House will now be watched with esnecial interest.