OBITUARY

Otago Witness, Issue 3885, 28 August 1928, Page 32

OBITUARY

VISCOUNT HALDANE. LONDON, August 19. The death is announced of Viscount Haldane. RUGBY, August 21. Newspapers continue to publish tributes to the work of the late Viscount Haldane. The King, in a message of sympathy to the relatives, says: “Viscount Haldane will be remembered with respect and gratitude for his services to the State, and especially by all who recognised that it was chiefly due to his able administration as War Minister that, 14 years ago, on tiie outbreak of hostilities, the British Expeditionary Force Vas promptly and efficiently mobilised and despatched abroad.” LONDON, August 23. Viscount Haldane was borne to the family burial ground at Gleneagles from the private chapel on a horse-drawn lorry. The Earl of Lucan represented the King. MR LLOYD GEORGE’S TRIBUTE. ENSURED THE ALLIED SUCCESS. LONDON, August 19. Mr Lloyd George, referring to Lord Haldane, said: “ I always thought he was most harshly treated in war time, and accorded the basest ingratitude. No British statesman more greatly ensured .the Allied success. He organised tt Territorials, who saved us during the dark winter of 1915 when we had no other troops. He organised the General Staff and the Expeditionary Force, and initiated the Officers’ Cadet Corps, yet he was treated as if he was a traitor to his native land. It hurt him deeply at times.”—Australian T>re"s Association. Richard Burdon Haldane was born in Scotland in July, 1856, and studied at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cottingen. A successful lawyer, who became Queen’s Counsel in 1890, he entered the Commons in 1885 as a Liberal. Ten years later, to the general surprise, he accepted the War Ministry, and devoted himself for six years and a-half to carrying out many essential army reforms. With the aid of his military advisers he laid the foundations for a systematic development of the British land forces, built up the general staff, thoroughly reorganised the standing army, and finally replaced the old volunteers by the much more efficient territorial army. The result was that on the outbreak of war there was a small expeditionary force ready for immediate service. In pre-war days he was strongly opposed to Lord Roberts’s conscription campaign, as he thought compulsory service would divert money and attention from Britain’s first line of defence, the navy. Fully absorbed in his work at the War Office, he found little time to rake part in the political controversies of the period, but he was well known to be in favour of better relations with Germany, and just after the Agadir affair he was sent on a secret mission to Berlin, the details of which were not disclosed by Mr Asquith until October, 1914. Viscount Haldane assured the Germans that Britain would not make or join in an unprovoked attack on Germany; but, as the Germans demanded an absolute pledge of British neutrality if Germany were engaged in war, nothing came of the conversations, and Viscount Haldane told the Kaiser and Admiral von Tirpitz that Britain would be compelled to build two ships for every new German vessel constructed. Soon afterwards Viscount Haldane exchanged his post at the War Office for that of Lord Chancellor. After the war began he was disappointed because Lord Kitchener did not expand the territorials, but created an entirely new army. There was much feeling against Viscount Haldane on account of his German sympathies, and his pre-war remark that he regarded Germany as his “ spiritual home ” was the subject of bitter comment. The result was that he was left out of the first Coalition Ministry formed in 1915. but was awarded the Order of Merit. He then passed out of politics for a time and devoted himself to philosophy, in which, as in education generally, he had always been keenly interested. He had translated Schopenhauer and had written much himself, and he now used his leisure to complete “The Reign of Relativity,” published in 1921, which had occupied him off and on for 40 years. Naturally, when Einstein went to England to lecture, on that subject, he was the guest of Viscount Haldane. His reapparance in politics in 1924 was an astonishing one, for he joined the Labour Cabinet of Mr Ramsay MacDonald, assuming once more the office of Lord Chancellor. He did not, however, play a prominent part during its brief period of power, which ended in October, 1924. He was raised to the peerage in 1911 as Viscount Haldane of Cloan, and has been honoured by many universities and learned societies.

VANCOUVER, August 20. A message from Dublin (New Hampshire) states that Colonel George Harvey, a former Ambassador to Britain, died today with a heart attack. LONDON, August 21. The death is announced "of Mr William Hodge Coats, chairman of J. and P. Coats, Ltd.; aged 62. LONDON, August 25. The death is announced of the Rev. Gerard Trower.

The Right Rev. Gerard Trower, D.D.. who was born in lEBO, became rector of Christ Church, Sydney, in 1895, and in 1901 was appointed Bishop of Nyasaland. From 1910 to 1927 he was Bishop of Western Australia, and at the tune of his death was Rector of Ch ale, Isle of Wight.