IN THE PUBLIC EYE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16487, 28 February 1914, Page 14

IN THE PUBLIC EYE.

PROMINENT PEOPLE OF THE PERIOD. Mr F. D. Acland, the Under-Secre-lary for Foreign Affaire, to whom it fell tho. other day to have to make t statement concerning British policy In the Mexican trouble belongs, of rourso, to a well-known family, one branch of which, at least, has established itself in Nfew Zealand. The Aclancjs have distinguished themselves in many 'spheres of activity during the past hundred years and they havo now two baronetcies, the original creation, dating from the days of Charles 1., and the honour conferred on the great medical member of the family. - Medicinfe, by the way, appears to . have had a special attraction for them. Tho first • baronet won distinction by raising a troop to defend his homo at Colamb John, in Devon, in tho interest's of Charles 1., a service for winch he had to pay a substantial fine when the Parliamentarians got tho upper hand.

The Acland of particular interest at the moment is the son of the Privy Councillor, who was Vice-President of tho Committee or Council on Education in Mr Gladstone’s last Government. There was probably not a more capable education administrator in the century than the Right Hon A. H. D. Acland. He made a study of his subject from A to Z, introduced innumerable; reforms, stimulated the whole system and brought under the control of the authorities thousands: of children concerning whose fate nobody had cared twopence. • Indeed, it may be doubted whether any better work was dono ixi any department of government at. that time, but it happened that the enthusiast did not blow his own trumpet and no one else blew it for him. His brother, the baronet, was also in politics.' Their father, by the way, had been at Oxford with Gladstone arid Lord Elgin, and a warm friendship had sprung up then, so that it was vorv natural to find the great Liberal taking a keen personal interest in the vounger generation. Mr F. D. Acland, although concerned with foreign affairs at the moment, has also taken a close and practical interest in education probloms.

The Acland 'family illustrates, of course, the manner in which the colonies have been linked up with some of tho oldest and best-known families of the Mother Country. There were certainly Aclands in Devon in early Plantagenet times, and if there is anything in etymology the first ancestor of the tribe to make a name for himself, perhaps to build a substantial habitation, was an individual who lived on the borders of an oak forest. It is a far cry from that local celebrity to the Horn «T. B. A. Acland, sixth son of the tenth Baronet, who came out to New Zealand in the fifties and took hold of a substantial area of' virgin land in Canterbury. Why, at thirty years of age,' he should havo left "the Old Country and the. practice of the law to commence pioneering as a sheep-farmer in an almost unknown colony regains to be explained, but it was fortunate for New Zealand that so many cultured and enevgotic

men like Mr Acland should have been attracted here. Mr Acland married a v daughter of .Bishop Harper, and his sons, ns one would expect from the children of such parents, aro living up ' to their father’s high ideal of citizenslop.

The allegations about the sale of titles in Coronation Year must be embarrassing to the -recipients of tho honors as well as to the Government of tho day. It is a little surprising to find Lord Selbortie interesting himself in the subject, > because he has presumably had sufficient experience of party methods to know that investigations nre just as likely to discredit his own party as to injure the Liberals. Lord Sclborne, of course, was Higli Commissioner -■in South Africa before Lord Gladstone went out to take that unenviable, post. . Before that he was Under-Secretary for .the Colonies, and then First Lord of the Admiralty in Conservative Administrations, The first Earl was Attorney-General under Palmerston when Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer and was subsequently in Gladstone’s administration. He was created Bafon Selborno when lie~became Lord Chancellor and was given an Earldom in 1882, so that • the peerage is not of ancient date. Lord Charnwood, who is also interesting himself In the question, has an obvious incentive, because he received his title in 1911. Just what his qualifications were the brief newspaner notices of the time did not reveal. His jjolitical experience was limited to three of fotif years in the early nineties, and apart' from the fact that .he sat in the House of Commons the reference works have little to say about him. He is a Benson and ho belongs to Lichfield.

Sir Horace Plunkett Tins been rather y out of the'public eye of late, but he ' came into it again the other clay with some sensible observations on the Ulster problem. There are few men better qualified to speak of Irish conditions, because Sir Horace can pride himself on being one of the makers of the new Ireland. His work at the Department of Agriculture has been of .enormous value in the development of; the country, and the best tribute that can be paid it is to be found in’*the figures of the growth of prospeyity of rural Ireland; and in the fact that the Liberal administrators have nothing but praise for the policy ho initiated. He was a member of the Congested Districts Board, and liis experience convinced, him that the salvation of Ireland would not be comp’ete unless the small farmers,, in addition to obtaining security of tenure, were taught modern methods of farming, were, gssisted by an elastic finance system ahd were induced to co-operate in tho marketing ,of;their produce. Agricultural societies, were established all over departmental experts were/temployed. to instruct the farmers in all branches of the agricultural and pastoral industries and credit banks were established to assist them financially. In fact, Sir Horace Plunkett was applying to Ireland very much the same policy as tho Liberals instituted , in New Zealand with such signal sucNeess. Sir Horace, of course, is an Irishman, being a son of the sixteenth Baron Dnnsany and uncle of the present Lord Dunsany. The Earls of Kintal! belong to the elder branch of the same family.

The French newspapers oould not bo expected to grow very enthusiastic concerning the selection of Prince William of Wied as the approved candidate for the throne of Albania, but 'they console themselves with 'the reflection that the intrigues of Austria and Italy, of Greece and Servia and Montenegro, will beep him busy. Already, according to the cable messages, abundant troubles are being prepared for him. It is in his favour tnat the Paris journals concede his personal qualifications for the post. He belongs to a family that has always been Liberal in .politics, ' at least as Liberal a 3 a princely'' house can conveniently be. Neuwied was a place of refuge for persecuted., Lutherans, and the city came to be known through Europe be- ■ cause of the marked toleration of the counts in religious matters. Tho rulers of the eighteenth century carried their Liberalism at times to an extreme, but their way of life has since become rather more conventional, and Prince William, since his residence in Berlin, has been one of tho leaders of fashionable society. His father, doubtless influenced by the fact that_ the family had onco produced a distia*

guished explorer, in Prince Maximilian, was an enthusiastic member of the German Colonial Society, in tho days when colonial enterprises wero not at all’ in favour. The suggestion of Prince William’s candidature for the Albanian throne is said to havo come from Roumania, Carmen Sylva being tho Prince’s aunt.

The princely family of Wied is one of tho “ mediatised ” houses of Germany, which lost their sovereignty at tho beginning of last century. Tho old Empire'had many rulers of small territories who wero entitled to he regarded ns sovereigns because they held their thrones directly or immediately from the Emperor. In the territorial adjustments these petty rulers lost their sovereignty and were mediatised, that, is to say they were made subject to other rulers. This first happened in 1803,. and in 1800 the changes along tho Rhine involved a further application of the process, but. tho term really ceased to have its proper meaning with tho abolition of the Empire. Naturally the dispossessed rulers resented the interference with their status, and in tho settlement that came after Waterloo the Powers impressed upon Germany the necessity of conciliating tile princes with a grievance bv respecting their sovereign rights. The right that they value most highly, of course, is that of equality of birth with ..other Royal houses, a matter, of moment when marriages are under consideration.