PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON

Hokitika Guardian, 25 June 1928, Page 3

PERSONAL NOTES FROM LONDON

LONDON, May 18

Sir Joseph Ward arrived in London last week, and will remain here for five or six weeks. His visit is a purely private one, and lie hopes to be back in New Zealand at the end of July, soon after the opening of the session. He will be a guest of honour at the New Zealand dinner on Monday .

The following death notice has appeared in “The Times”: On May 17, 1928, at 5, Bradmore Road; Oxford, Alary Ellen Owen, widow of Sidney Janies Owen, Reader in Indian History in the Univorsity of Oxford, and daughter of Henry Sewell, first Premier of New Zealand.

The Committee of Award for tbe Commonwealth Fund Fellowships have made appointments to tbe twenty Fellowships tenable ‘by British graduates in American universities for the two years beginning ill September, 1928. Three extra Fellowships tenable by candidates from British Dominion universities have been appointed, and of these one goes to Mr Jules 0. J. Malfroy, of tbe University of New Zealand, and of Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, to Columbia University, in Law. Mr Malfroy, as holder of the New Zealand Law Travelling Scholarship, has been studying at Cambridge since 1926. He has played bis part, too, in Rugby as wing three-quarter. But last year, after playing in seniors’ trials with Mr Garth Williams, be was unlucky with a scries of injuries, and so missed his “blue.”

The Hon. G. J. Anderson and Mrs Anderson are staying quietly in London, Mr Anderson’s health not being restored yet. In its notice of “ Tbe Amazing Career of Edward Gibbon Wakefield,” Dr. A. J. Harrop’s new book, tbe “Daily Mail ” says that much fresh material has been made available since Dr Garnett wrote the only extant biography over 30 years ago, and that Dr Harrop’s book will be a permanent acquisition to our literature and indispensable to the student o! Australasian colonisation.

Wakefield was born in 1796 and had a most eccentric career before ho interested himself in the settlement of Australasia—abducting two heiresses and marrying them—the second one after his first wife was dead. For this second abduction be was tried at Lancaster in 1827. Though the lady had not been at all unwilling, Wakefield was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. It was while in prison that he turned his thoughts to colonisation. His'basic idea was that land in a new colony ought to be sold,not given away in enormous grants, and that the proceeds of the sale should be used to promote immigration. This was a sound theory and it found many supporters; it was applied practically and with a large measure of success in South Australia.

Wakefield’s supreme service to the British people, was however, tbe winning of New Zealand at a time when the French Government was meditating its annexation. Dr Harrop writes “ There was a very real race for New Zealand between Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Captain Langlois, and it says much for the determination of Wakefield that lie was able to force tbe unwilling British Government to act before Langlois could induce the French Government, by no moans opposed to colonisation, to give its full support to liis project.”