PORTRAIT OF MR. HUGHES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 150, 21 March 1921, Page 4

PORTRAIT OF MR. HUGHES

IN "AN ONLOOKER IN FRANCE.”

(Roc. March 19, 5.5 p.m.) London, March 18.

Major Sir William Orpeu’s book, "An Onlooker in France," just published by by Williams and Nofgate, reproduces a portrait of Mr. W. M. Hughes, Commonwealth Premier, of whom lie says: “Mr. Hughes made a big mark at the conference. He is as deaf as a post, but has a cutting wit. M. Clemenceau and he used to have great jokes, and I have often seen them rocking with laughter together, M. Clemenceau’s grey-gloved hands on Mr. Hughes’s shoulders, leaning over him and shouting into _ Mr. Hughes’s enormous deaf ears. He visited me one day, bringing a copy of the ‘Times,’ and said, ‘Good morning. 1 asked him to sit in the chair. He sat and read the paper for about half an hour, and after murmuring something 1 was unable to catch, rose and left. Aext day he ’phoned me to ask if I wishod another sitting, and I said,. No, sir. I his was my only personal meeting with Air. Hughes, but I gathered that he is extremely ’cute and cunning, which is auite possible from the general make-up of his 11 The portrait by Major Orpen shows Mr. Hughes in a side-face position, sitting, reading the newspaper-Aus.-N.Z Cable Assn,