PERSONALITIES IN THE NEWS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 700, 28 November 1933, Page 7

PERSONALITIES IN THE NEWS

BIOGRAPHICAL SNAPSHOTS. Dr. Nikola Tesla. Dr. Nikola Tesla, well-known physicist and electirical inventor, who, in a signed statement recently announced the discovery of a principle by wtiich power f or driving machinery of the world may be derived from the cosmic energy which operates the universe, was born at Smiljan, Sexbia, in 1857, and educated at the elementary school at Gospic and the higher school at Karlstadt. He also attended special eourses in mathematics, physics, and mechanics at Gratz and a course of philosophy at the Universdlty of ■ Prague. His fatlier was a priest of tlie Greek Church, while his mother was a ,woman of greiat ingenuity, several improvements in rural household utensils and dndustraal implements being duie to her gift for inventipn. Aflter serving in the Austrian Telegraph Engineering Department for a time, Tesla went to Paris to fassdst in conducting experiments in •electric lightinjg, then in its infancy. His ideas proved to be far in advance

of those of the chief eleetricians of the day, but he felt that this was not properly reeognised. In 1882, hearing that America was the land where genius and invention were adequately rewarded, Tesla migraited thene, and was promptly made a member of Edison's staff. After working bralliantly for some- time dn the Edison laboratories, he left in 1886 iand assisted a company to develop the arc-lamp lighting system, of which he was the inventor. But his mind was chiefly occupied wiith the discovery of the rotating field principle for altemating current work and its application in motors. At that time (1888) the altermating current had no reeognised use, and few engineers knew anything about it. Tesla's work made its application almost universal. In 1891 he evolved th& Tesla coil or transformer by means of which a rapidly altemating oscillatory current can be transmitted •over long distances without danger. Many other important advances in (electrical development stand to his credit, including radio work and the transmission of power from Niagara Falls. In later years of his life he j •has devoted much time to experiment- I ing with the wireless transmission of power, and in 1931 it was declared that he believed he had solved the ; problem. General Wjeygand. j A colourful figure is General W'ey- ; giand, the French milatary leader who j has been visiting Morocco in connection with a reported proposal by the j French miilitary au(thorities to use > eoloured troops. The general is well- j known in England for his belief in a | strongly armed Franee, his conviction | that his country can defend itself only j by atbacking, his reading of the "keynote word" security. Everyone knows j that he was the youthful-looking | shadow of Foeh during the culminat- 1 ing months of chiefly Anglo-American j effort in 1918, and there are some who j realise that Foch finally eyed Wey- j gand askance hecause of the constant j whispers that the younger man was j really the brains of the partnership. | Weyg'and, however, has collected J great prestige. He is largely credited j with the defeat of the Bolsheviks in | Poland in 1920, though Pilsudski had ; taken ithe winniing disposition before j the French arrived. He may not be j the most brilliant general that France poesesses to-day, but he is believed to j he so. He is accused of being cleri- | cal and reactionary, iand bis fiercest j critics say that he would like to bring | about a coup d'etat and restore the | monarchy. At 63 he is dapper and debonair, with every honour except a baton, a Chief of Staff who rarely misses anything, socially or ceremonially, while finding time to be elected to the Academy and to recast the French Army. To-day that army as ,as much "Wleygand's" as the first British volunteer army was "Kitchener's men." Weygand's mind is the mind of France. The Rhine is the only frontier. From the original Foch conception he has never waveried, and he carries his own Press and his own politicians like any parliamentary leader. Of his integrity and high purpose there cannot be the islightest doubt, but his rigid outlook on war can be challenged. He has not an atom' of faith in Germany, in pacts, or in Geneva, and he would use the big stick to enforce the results of Versailles without hesitation. He hias a big following to-day, though much of it is concentrated in the armamentmakers' Press. Mr. Walter Citrine. A power in politics in Britain is Mr. Walter Citrine, the big chief of the trades unions whose name has heen in the news during the last few days. Mr. Citrine is the general secretary of the Trades Utiion Gongress and has held that post for the last seven years. He is the president of the International Federation of Trades Unions, has heen a member of the Economic Advisory Council of the Government, is a director of the Daily Herald, and on the council of the Na- ■ tional Institute for Industrial Psychology. Mr. Citrine was born 56 years ago, and he made his way into the topmost ring of Labour politics hy way of the electrical. and shipbuilding trades. In the year of the outhreak of the war he w;as a district secretary of the Mersey Electrical Trades Union,_ but within three years he was president l0f the Federated Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades dn the Mersey district, and advancing to the chairmanship of the local Labour Party branch, memhership of the Labour Research Bureau, and finally Parliamentary candidate. In the "khaki election" he was hadly beaten by the Coalitionist candidate, and he continued at his work in trades unionism, rising to becoime assistant gener,ail secretary to the Electrical Trades Union in 1920, assistant secretary of the Trades Union Congress four years later, and acting secretary of the con- . gress a year after he joined its staff. Mr. Citrine has no academic qualifications, he is not a member of that band of intellectuals which blended with the patient workers in Labour's cause and the - dissatisfied younger

sons of wealthy families to make the old Labour Party such' a curious combination. But he is possessed of considerable intellectual drive, is a powerful personality, and has a skrewd judgment of conditions. Thus he has written several books which have received .attention. He is, of course, one of the uncompromising Socialists, and during the terms of oflice of the second MacDonald Government he was always agitating for more drastic action.