In the Public Eye

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 132, 30 November 1929, Page 30

In the Public Eye

Lady Heath.

As Mrs. Eliott-Lynn, Lady Heath was one of: the first women to fly, and she has made many notable flights, the greatest being a solo trip from Cape Town to London last year. She w:»s actually the first woman to fly a Moth aeroplane, and accomplished a remarkable feat in 1927, when, in one day, she- covered 1300 miles, and made 79 landings between dawn and dusk in a complete circuit of England, during which she landed at every usable aerodrome

in the country, as

well as on twenty fields —or paddocks as they would be termed in New Zealand. On 4th October, 1928, Lady Heath made another wonderful flight, attaining an altitude of 2G,000 feet (nearly five miles) in a Moth, which, at that time, broke all records for height flying. In October, 1927, she was married to Sir James Heath, an elderly colliery proprietor, and since then she has caused her husband quite a lot of embarrassment, quite apart from her hobby of flying. In fact in early Victorian days sho would have been referred to us the "Notorious Lady Heath," for few modern women have been more in the Public Eye than she has, first as an airwoman and secondly as a free sple-'der who does not seem to know the value of money—or so her husband says. This week Sir James Heath's repudiation of his wife's debts reached the King's Bench Division, when he contested a claim for £239 for gowns supplied by West End dressmakers just before she left for America. The evidence submitted revealed that Sir James settled on his wife trust securities valued at £20,000, from which the annual income amounts to £925. It was stated that she even held up the wedding and failed to arrive at the church because the settlement had not been made, and it did not, in fact, take place until a later date. He has paid her debts on several occasions, once paying as much as; £1000, which included the purchase price of an aeroplane. Last year, however,' he decided that such expenditure must stop, and he advertised in England and America repudiating all responsibility for her debts. Before she took up flying as a hobby she was well known as an athlete, and used to hunt and follow the beagles in the Midlands, while she was also famous as a daring motorist. Her; thirst for excitement first made her attempt to fly, and she soon learnt that she had the air sense, and since then everything, even her husband, has been placed second to her desire to fly.

President Irigoyon.

For the second time Senor Hipolito Irigoyen is President of the Republic of Argentina, which has a Constitution very similar to that of the United States. Argentina is a confederation of fourteen States (or provinces) which govern them-

selves autonomously and have their own Legislatures, Constitutions, and laws. The President governs for a period of six years. He cannot bo re-elected for tho succeeding term, but he can be after one ad-

ministrative per-

iod has intervened. That is the case with President Irigoyen. He was President for the first time from 1916 to 1922, and he was again elected last year. There has never been in Argentina a more popular leader, his popularity frequently being invested with mystical characteristics by the mass of the people, among whom it is frequent to hear him called "the father of the poor/ giving to the word "poor" the sense of worker or wage-earner. Neither timo nor the difficult test of his first administration has diminished his immeasurable popularity. On the contrary, his reputation with the bulk of the people- seems to have increased in strength, rather than to have lessened. And his popularity is most surprising. He has never delivered a speech, ho has not written books, ho had occupied no public post bef oro his first administration, his policies in his early days were vague, and his political manifestoes were strange and obscure. There are, of course, several explanations. The people believe that the President is especially favourable to the interests of Labour, and there is the basic law of the attraction of the masses —as the probabilities of victory gather round a candidate his partisans increase in numbers. He works with his capital and his credit, while his opponents use their capital only. Senor Irigoyen is not a dictator in the same sense as other men have been. He understands that his prestige is purely that of the civilian who deserves well of his fellows, and he cannot count on the army to further any of his schemes. He repeatedly declares that his mission is to re-establish the authority of the Constitution, but he interprets that document in his own way. Ho has no constitutional scruples, and if the Constitution gets in his way then he finds a way to hurdle it. He is looked upon as a personally honest man, but many people declare that he is a bad administrator. He hates and despises his opponents, but he does not esteem those who work for him, and yet he keeps them at his side. The mystery can best de described by the magic word "personality." He is probably verging on 80 years df age, but ho is a healthy, quiet man, vigorous in constitution, tall and without a stoop, with dark hair that shows no signs of groyness, and he is by no means mentally decrepit. His hold on the goodwill of the people of Argentina is sufficient indication of this, and he will probably terminate his period of office —if he lives that long—as popular in 1934 as he is to-day.

M. Joseph Stalin.

It is probable that there is no world figure so little known as Joseph Stalin, virtual ruler of Kussia. He is neither President nor Prime Minister, but is generally referred to as the General Secretary of the Communist Party. He is now just over 50 yeai-s old, the son of a peasant shoemaker in the Caucasus, while his mother was a" devout Christian who sent her son to a seminary at TifHs, "but it is probable that here ho learnt more of revolution than he did of religion." At any ate as he reached man's estate he becamo a professional agitator against the powers that be, an organiser of strikes among tho workers of the oilfields of Baku. Orders for his arrest were made on several occasions, but generally he managed to evade the Tsar's police by some means or other. It has to be admitted that he was either exceptionally clever or exceptionally lucky, for always he seemed

able to escape. On the sixth occasion on which the police came looking for him, however; he was not so fortunate, and the four-years prior to tho revolution of 1917 were spent in prison. When the Bolsheviks captured the Ad;ministration and imprisoned tho Tsar and the Royal Family, Stalin became one of tho Committee of Five who managed the uprising, working shoulder to shoulder with Levin, and strongly favouring the seizure of power, in opposition to Zinovieff and Kameneffj. who were all . for delay. From 1917 to 1924 Stalin was Commissar of Natioualites, the man who initiated a ! successful policy of giving -■autonomy and local freedom to the nationalities within the Union of Soviets. Besides this, in 1919 and the following year he was People's Commis'sa/ for Workers and Peasants Inspection, and for the next three years a member of; the Revolutionary War Council of the Republic. He was just beginning to grasp at power, and he did not let it elude him. Before he became secretary of. the Communist Party the office was one of mere routine, but he made it tho focal point from which emanated • a powerful political machine.'- Of recent months rumours have come thick and fast from Russia, stating that he had fallen from his high estate. It has been stated that he has quarrelled with Bukharin, that ho has iad differences with Tomsky, and tliat a Georgian plot had been hatched against his authority, but these things have never been confirmed and he may still be considered the virtual ruler of Eussia, though his power may have become more : circumscribed than was tho case twelve months ago.

Mr. Will Thorne, M.P.

One of tho most important members of the British Labour Party, who holds the West Ham seat in the House of Commons, is Mr. Will Thome, who celebrated his seventy-second birthday ast month. He is general secretary f the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, and was born at Birmingham on Bth October, 1857, both his parents being brick-yard workers. He started work before he was seven years old, and he grew up into the Labour movement, realising the inanv hardshins

. * and injustices which the workers of England were in those days suffering under. In March, 1889, he was responsible for the formation of the Gas Workers' and General Labourers' Union of Great Britain and Ireland, now known as the National Union of General and Municipal Workers. In the same year he was elected general secretary, a position he has held ever since. He has been a member of the West Ham Town Council since 1890, and was chosen as its Mayor in 1917-18." During his term of office ho collected £40,000 for Queen Mary's Hospital War Memorial, Stratford. In 1896 he was the secretary of the Labour and Socialist International Congress held at Queen's Hall. In 1898 he was elected fraternal delegate to the American Federation of Labour Convention from the British Trades Union Congress,.and was chairman of the Newport Trades Union Congress in. 1912.: .He .was :the. first delegate from England to attend the Canadian Trades Union Congress in 1913 on behalf of the British" Trades Union Congress. He first represented his constituents in West Ham in 1906, and has been returned to the House of Commons with majorities .ranging from 5000 to nearly 17,000—the latter secured at the last General Election. In recognition of his services to the union his colleagues" presented him -with a motor-car as a birthday gift. Ho drives the car himself.

Mr. Neville Chamberlain,

Ever amce 1876 there nas been a. Chamberlain in the House of Commons who has taken a prominent part in the business of Parliament. The late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain entered the House in that year, to become one of the most famous figures of his day in British politics, to be followed by Ms two sons—Sir Austen and Mr. Neville Chamberlain — halfbrothers, whose mothers were first cousins. Sir Austen Chamberlain's mother was Miss Harriet

Kenrick, but she

died two years after her marriage, and five years later he married her cousin, • Miss Florence Konrick, who became the mother of Mr..Neville Chamberlain. The young~er of the two brothers made a remarkable success of his business occupations, and later was equally successful as a politician. He is said to. have been one of Mr. Lloyd George's "discoveries," being appointed Director-General of National Services during the" Great War. In this post, however, he was not particularly successful,-with- the- result that towards the end of 1916 he resigned and the Department was drastically reorganised. His career through this failure was by no means ruined, though further political progress was delayed until 1922, wh'en he was appointed Postmaster-General in Mr. Bonar Law's Cabinet. He next became Minister of Health, and, after a short period in this office, was promoted to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer when Mr. Baldwin became Prime Minister. " He was, of course, out of office when the party was in Opposition in 1924, but when Mr. Baldwin returned he reverted again to the Ministry of Health. He. first entered Parliament for the Ladywood Division of Birmingham, but this seat has gradually, been reverting to Labour principles, "and he was transferred to the Edgbaston Division of Birmingham, always safe for Conservatism, and was returned at the last General Election by a majority of more than 14,000 votes, while Ladywood turned to Labour..' He is one of the few public men in "England who has not served the conventional apprenticeship to a public career, entering it by way of commercial experience, and, like his father, he is said to combine the outlook of a statesman with the acumen of a business man. As a young man he was sent out to the Bahamas, where he entered into business, returning to England in 1897 to become director of a number of typical Birmingham businesses in which the family had considerable financial interests. For some time ho steadfastly refused to take any part in municipal or political activities, but in 1911 he entered the Birmingham City Council and became chairman of its Town-Planning Committee. In 1915 he was elected Lord Mayor of Birmingham, and the following year he became Director of National Service, which started him on a political career, entering Parliament in 1918. During his Ministerial career his methods, were his own, and now that ho has been elected president of the Conservative and Unionist Organisation, as announced last week, it is probable that some of his genius for classification and analysis will be shown in the doings of the association at the nest election— whenever that may_ occur.

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