AMUSING CONTROVERSY.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18350, 9 June 1931, Page 10

AMUSING CONTROVERSY.

- - <r> ABOUT HEREDITARY TITLES. An amusing controversy has arisen between the Duke of Atholl and Lord Ponsonby following a speech by the latter on hereditary titles at a Cambridge University Union debate. Lord Ponsonby declared that titles did not produce an aristocracy capable of governing. The Duke of Atholl, who was at school at Farnborough with Lord Ponsonby, has replied to this criticism in a letter from which the following are extracts: — “It is now nearly 50 years since I was at a private school with a chap called Arthur Ponsonby. He was better-looking than I, and he played the violin (as we then thought) divinely. He also spoke- French well-. “As he was superior to me in all these respects, I naturally suffered under what in these days is known as an inferiority complex. The real

trouble came, however, from the fact that that fellow Ponsonby was Queen Victoria’s page. “Shiny Photographs.” < '•* ® rft'.JlflL'f'&W “Not only did he have extra leave to attend Royal Courts, but he used to come back with great shiny photographs (Lafayette, I think) of himself in the Queen’s pages’ uniform of which even Lord Fauntleroy might well have been jealous. “So I have to confess that I was once what to-day is called a Bolshie, and, looking back over a long term of years, I sometimes wonder which of us was the snob —Arthur Ponsonby or myself ... I suppose that it was I. “Lord Ponsonby is reported to have slated that titles do not produce an aristocracy fit to govern and do nol produce a good breed. To ‘know thyself’ is not given to us all, and it is 1 not for me to dispute Lord Ponsonby’s statement. “He is further reported to have said: ‘I am descended from Charles II.; but there is nothing much in that, as most of us are.’

“To some of us, however, this dls- | tinction has not been accorded, but yet it does not arouse in me that feeling of jealousy or snobbery which used to consume me in the year ISBI. Perhaps in the year 1931 my temperament is more prosaic. “Lord Ponsonby has led me to wonder whether the superiority complex which he now affects is not really as snobbish as the inferiority complex under which I once suffered. First Violin. “I remember that the last time we played together in the school concert the tune was ‘The Russian March,’ Ponsonby being first violin. Queen Victoria’s page has marched on since :hen.” 1 “It is very amusing," said Lord Ponsonby, when shown the Duke’s letter. “If it is true that I was a bragging little fellow about ■ my services at Queen Victoria’s Court, I imagine it must have -been almost entirely on the score of having secured a day or two off from school."