LATE LORD CARMICHAEL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 813, 6 November 1929, Page 9

LATE LORD CARMICHAEL

MEMOIR PUBLISHED BY WIDOW FORMER STATE GOVERNOR LONDON, Tuesday. Lady Carmichael’s memoir of the late Lord Carmichael, formerly Governor of Victoria., Madras and Bengal, was published today. It includes a chapter on Lord Carmichael’s services in Home politics by Lady Novar, wife of Viscount Novar, formerly GovernorGeneral of Australia. Sir David Masson, formerly Professor of Chemistry at Melbourne University, contributes a detailed account of Lord Carmichael’s term of office as Governor of Victoria. The memoir narrates his youthful friendship with Mr. Robert Bridges, the Poet Laureate, who was best man at Lord Carmichael’s wedding. Incidentally it recalls that the first political meeting which Lord Carmichael ever attended was one held during Mr. Gladstone’s Midlothian Campaign in 1579, at which, as he found years later, the late Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. Andrew Fisher, was also present. A long passage is devoted to the political crisis that arose four months after Lord Carmichael’s arrival in Melbourne in 1908, when on a vote of no-confidence the Bent Government was defeated, and Lord Carmichael granted a dissolution. Sir David says that in his opinion it is beyond dispute that the Governor followed the best constitutional practice, and had no responsibility for what followed. The public and the Press quickly came to the view that the Governor’s decision was probably right, or if not, that the blame was the Premier’s who, on certain points, misled the Governor. A tribute is paid to Lady Carmichael’s work for the Victoria League, the kindergarten movement, and the Arts and Crafts Society. After a description of Lord Carmichael’s work in Madras the interesting volume concludes with a chapter written by Mr. John Buchan, M.P., entitled “The Last Years,” and a record of Lord Carmichael’s services to art as a trustee of the National Gallery, the Wallace Collection, and as an art collector.