ABOUT KITCHENER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1003, 10 June 1911, Page 4

ABOUT KITCHENER.

Lord Kitchener is to enjoy some of the leisured ease of a typical English country gentleman after all. Shortly before he left India we were told that he regarded his military career as being virtually ended, and that he proposed to live quietly in England during the remainder of bis lile, probably as a farmer and stock breeder in a small way. At about the same time there was some gossip to the effect that he would claim a seat in the House of Lords and make himself unpleasant to the amateur military strategists there. A little later these anticipations were forgotten ; that announcement that he had been appointed to the Mediterranean command seemed to consign him to a long further period of active service. Then came, still more unexpectedly, his withdrawal from the new post, followed by a renewal of speculation as to what the Radical Government might do, or attempt, to get this potentially inconvenient critic out of the way. Lord Kitchener remains one of the minor Ministerial problems of the day. The only official job provided for him at present is that of carrying the Sword of State at the Coronation! Meanwhile we have the more inteiesting news that he has realised at last an early ambition by becoming the purchaser of Broome Park Estate, a delightful old place amid the Kentish hills between Canterbury and Folkestone. It is associated in literary history with the “ Ingoldsby Legends,” and was for generations the home of the Oxendon family. At one time the estate comprised 5400 acres. Mortgagees ate into it at intervals. Now the area is only 550 acres. But this is the best of the land. It offers a couple of magnificent views and bears a stately old mansion, dating from 1636, and containing beautiful marbles and other interior decorations of a class which is rare even in England.