OUR LONDON LETTER.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12166, 6 March 1909, Page 5

OUR LONDON LETTER.

THE NEW HIGH FIRST DAYS- IN LONDON.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON", January 22. The Hon. W. Hall Jones, who arrived last Thursday, accompanied by his wife and daugthersk has been having a busy time. He has had a splendid journey in the " Qorinthic," which has been greatly to the advantage of his. health, and he thinks he has at last shaken off, the illness which was the causes of his journey here some time back. The strain of deputations and departmnetal work in political life is very great, and ho is not sorry to be now free from it.

Mr. Hall Jones was met at Plymouth by Mr. J. Augustine Mason, private secretary to the late High Commissioner, who will fill the same office to the—present one; Mr. E. M. Kennaway, of the High Commissioner's Department; and Mr. Phillips, representing the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company, by whose line Mr. Jones has came over, and he was accompanied in. the express to London by Dr. Collins, and Che Hon. Kathleen Plunkett. sister, of the Governor of New Zealand. The High Commissioner entered on his new duties on Monday.

Interviewed by a Reuters representative, he said he looked forward to his period of office in London, where he had many friends. Turning to New Zealand affairs, he said that the Government possessed a handsome working majority. The second ballot has proved its value as a means of^ expressing the true wishes of the coifritry at elections.

The "Westminster Gazette" of Monday published' a long interview with Mr. Hall Jones, in which he dealt at length with the result of the "No-license" poll at the late election in the Dominion. The same subject, by the way, has been commented upon by many of the leading dailies.

Mr. Hall Jones' first appearance as a speaker in London, as a High Commissioner, was at the banquet to Lord Northcote, on Tuesday. A large and influential company, representative of the two great political parties, and of many of the arts, sciences, and met at the banquet at the "Whitehall Rooms, under the auspices -of the Royal Colonial Institute, to do honour to Lord Northcote, on his. retirement from the Governor-Generalship of the Commonwealth of Australia. The chair was occupied by the Earl of Crewe, Colonial Secretary, and amongst the guests were the Duke of Marlborough, the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquis of Salisbury, the Earl of Longford, the Earl of Rosebery. the Earl of Halsbury, Earl Waldegrave, the Earl of Jersey, the Earl of Lichfield, Lord Strathcona, Lord Mount Stephen, Viscount Milner, Admiral Sir Day H. Bosanquet, Vice-iAdmiral Sir Bouverie F. Clark, Lord George Hamilton, Sir Everard F. Thurn, Lord Amothill, Sir Horace Tozer, Lord Ashbourne, Sir Richard Solomon, Lord Tennyson, Lord Brassey, Admiral Sir E. R. Fremantle, Lord Macdonnell, etc., etc.

After the Chairman had given the toast of "The King," Mr. Hall Jones proposed.the toast of "The Queen .and the Royal Family," and in a few well chosen words made reference to the loyalty and affection felt for tiie Queen in New Zealand