NAPOLEONS OF 1926

Shannon News, 2 July 1926, Page 3

NAPOLEONS OF 1926

BRITONS AS UNCROWNED KINGS. Recent political events in China have revealed that the master mind behind Chango Tso-lin, the war lord, is that of an Englishman, Frank Sutton, who wields greater influence than any other man in the country with out one of two exceptions. An old Etonian, Sutton, has had an amazing career. Of commanding stature, but with only one arm the other was blown off in the war he has faced death a dozen times. Now he is a general in one of the opposing armies in China, and has a vast following among the teeming millions of that mysterio'us country. Pessimists who croak about the decline of British grit and our gift for leadership can be given plenty of evidence to the contrary.

The conclusion, a few weeks ago, of the protracted lawsuit between the Duff Development Company and the Government of lvalantan, one of the Malay States, brought into promin ence the' personality of the company’s founder, Major R. W. Duff, an Englishman who, after successfully quelling- a rebellion, entered into an agreement with the ruling native monarch whereby he assumed responsibility for developing the entire mineral resources of the| State. In the course of the work the Englishman built railways, laid out rubber plantations, and stamped out a number of virulent diseases, amonS them smallpox. The lawsuit, which was the outcome of a breach of contract on the part of Government of Kalantan, resulted in Major Duff’s organisation receiving nearly half a million pounds as compensation. Nor can one overlook the astonishing career of Colonel T. E. Lawvonce, the “uncrowned king' of Arabia,” who reorganised the scattered Arab forces during the war and led them to victory against the Turks Rumour has it that Colonel Lawrence —recently he was discovered serving as a private in the Tanks Corps—is back in the East. Not so long ago General Sir Tom Bridges, the Australian administrator, described to an audience of schoolboys the remarkable exploits of a young unnamed Englishman who, up to a year or two back, ruled a tract of country the size of Yorkshire, between Armenia and Georgia War had broken out between the two latter countries, and the Englishman who is still in his twenties, created a neutral state, through which he decreed the opposing armies should not pass. “He was alone, save for a servant and an interpreter,” the general stated. “Accompanied by these two he visited the rival forces and told them, in the name of the British Empire, to cease fire. He enlisted police, appointed public officials and ran a first-rate state for several months. It was only when we learned that he was revising the marriage laws of the people that we decided to send an official of greater experience in these matters.” One of the most powerful personalities in the Balkans, a man who is respected by prince and peasant alike, is a British subject. Another, an Irishman, is the power behind the presidential chair of Ecuador, the South American Republic. Sarawak, in North Borneo, is ruled by an Englishman, Rajah Brooke, whose forceful personality 'and gift for diplomacy worthily uphold the fine traditions of the first rajah, Sir James Brooke.