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Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16143, 22 February 1918, Page 6

The full list of the New Year Honours in the English papers contains a number of which no word came by cable. Possiblv the most interesting of these new distinctions is the tne conferred on the Nizam of Hyderabad. In acknowledgment of his princely generositv during the war—he has presented many thousands of pounds to various war funds and patriotic move-ments—-he has been given the title of "Faithful Friend of the British Government." But Kipling anticipated this marly years ago, when, in bis poem, "The Last Suttee,'' he gave as one of the titles of the dead Rajput king, "Friend of the English.''

Other recipients of honours of some note include Leslie Ward, the extraordinarily clever cartoonist of "Vanity Fair," known as "Spy," who achieved what was thought to ho the impossible feat 01 maintaining the high standard of the famous cartoons by "Ape," Carlo Pellegrini. A knighthood was also conferred upon Mr Sidney Low, the well-known author and journalist, who occupies the position of Lecturer on Imperial and Colonial History Pt the University of London. Several newspaper proprietors, and one or two journalists, including Mr Robert Bruce, the editor of the Glasgow "Herald," wero among the new knights, and the list also contained the names of several gentlemen whose only apparent claim to distinction of any kind was that they were either the Mayors of provincial _ towns, or members of Parliament. In the case of the latter, the services for which they wero rewarded must have been performed outside the House of Commons, for none of them have so far made any splash in the political pool.

M. Litvinoff, the Bolshevik Ambassador in London, who has wisely withheld for the present his comment cn the report that the Lenin Government have come to terms with Germany, was, of course, interviewed on liis appointment to his important post. He is described as. a short, thick-set man, of apparently considerable force cf character. He speaks Engjish perfectly as the result of nine years' residence in England, and he has done a good deal of journalism, having been, it is said, much sought after by editors of late. Possibly when interviewed he was feeling the responsibilities cf his new position, for there >vas nothing t striking in what he said. He put the blame Tor the bloodshed which has taken piace since the Bolsheviks secured power, on to the moderate Socialist parties in, tho country, chiefly the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries. He claimed

that the Bolshevik Government had the I support of nearly all the industrial workers and the peasants, and that it was not pro-German, or anti-Ally, or pacifist. The Government was out to militarism everywhere, and M. Litvinoff looked forward to the time when the Russian and German armies would "march together against the common foes of the world's proletariat." It would be more interestinc to hear him, in hi 3 home in a London suburb, enjoying all the benefits of well-ordered local and national government, express his present views upon the saturnalia of crime in which his Bolshevik friends are indulging in Petrograd. They would bo still more interesting if he were suddenly translated to Petrograd and compelled to live there in tho atmosphere of robbery and murder and Socialism-run-mad that prevails there at present. » There is probably not a woman in the Dominion who could not, if invited to do so. express a somewhat vigorous opinion as to the price- of sewing cotton. It will interest tho users of this important article to learn that the greatest British cotton-thread linn made profits in 1916 amounting to JL'3,357.390. The profits for years past have ranged between two-and-a-half and threc-antl-a-quartor millions, but the sum mentioned above was the record to date. It may have been surpassed, of course, by last year's figures. There can be low more wealthy businesses in the Kingdom. Yet it is less than a century old, and it sprang torn a little factory twenty yards long, equipped with a primitive little engine. Its success is one of the romances of British industry, built up, as it has been, on pennyworths.