The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY FEBRUARY 10th. 1912. ROMANCE OF AN EARLDOM.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 39, 10 February 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. SATURDAY FEBRUARY 10th. 1912. ROMANCE OF AN EARLDOM.

•ill .if. I ; ;■ d N hi ■ 1 ■ 11 ■' Thel Iromnnco of the Irish earldom of Fife 'is'‘furthei 1 Unfolded , by" Australiari; files' to jhaml from which, it,;is learned that Jckyl Chalmers Duff was enjoying a quiet game of chess when informed of the statement concerning himself, made by the .London ■‘Daily Mail”. He was not altogether surprised, for he is perfectly well acquainted with the details of his family history. Mr. Duff quite realises that even if he ;proves his .claim) there may bo no estate or money attached to the peerage. Mr; Duff, now resident' ill lived' for spine years at Warrnamhool, to which town he had retired after his service in .the Indian police. When in India he was a groat, sportsman. Rig game shooting occupied his spare time, with! the result that nowadays he is minus an ami, annexed by a tiger. Mr Dull thinks that the “Daily Mail” is not quite correct in the date of 1818, which is given as the date of the death of George Duff, a younger son ol the first Earl. Ho states that this George. Duff was deputy-sheriff —“sheriff depute,” as the Scots have )t—of Elgin, in which county the Duff’ family lived. George, not Daniel, as the “Daily Mail” states, was an Anglican clergyman, and became lather of Colonel Daniel George Duff, of the Honorable East India Company (Bombay) Army. 'This accounts for Mr Duff taking to the service in India. The late Sir Robert Duff, Governor of New South Wales, was a member of the family. Captain Duff, of H.M.S. Mars, who was killed at Trafalgar, was a brother of Mr Duff’s grandfather. Mr Duff takes the news contained in the statement of the “Daily Mail” is if ho were in the habit of succeeding to an earldom or two in ’the intervals of finishing a game of chess. He did not sav he had any objection to succeeding to the earliest honors of his family when he has proved his descent, but if the House of Lords should give an adverse decision lie will be quite happy to live m in .Melbourne. 'The late duke was on friendly terms with Mr Duff and his family, and Lady Elizabeth Fitzclarence—eldest daughter of William the Fourth and Mrs Jordan, who married the Earl of Errol and became mother of the late duke’s mother, a •onnection which gave him his highest claim to Queen Victoria’s regard, and won her consent to the marriage with the Princess Royal—was godmother to an uncle of Mr Duff. Mr Duff has served his country well, and his sons have done credit to Australia in South Africa. FALSE SECURITY. Commenting on the recent strike in Wellington and the patehed-np peace which resulted, the Wellington “Post” remarks that while it shares in the widespread regret that the ingenious compromise effected between the City Council and the strikers’ representatives at the eleventh hour on Monday deprived the public of the opportunity of putting tin 1 Strike Committee’s ultimatum to the proof, it declines to believe that the peace which was patched up will lull the citizens of Wellington nr the people of New Zealand into a false sense of security, or

will Mind their eyes to the lesson that has been plain for everybody to read in the experience of the past week. Disclaiming any desire to cause unnecessary alarm, our contemporary goes on to say that “the best way to avert war is to lie ready to meet it when it comes, and the preparation, if it is conducted in a cool, calm, and reasoned fashion, should have rather a sedative than a provocative effect. That any sane person can find anything in the circumstances that brought about the Wellington tramways strike, in the methods employed or threatened by the strikers to effect their object, or in the settlement arrived at, upon which to found a message of peace to this city or the country, passes comprehension. Public opinion was with the City Council from the start, and it grew more strongly favourable with each step in the struggle. Defiance both of public opinion and of the law was, however, a part of the strikers’ programme, and they carried it to a successful issue.. It was also proved by the final stage of the struggle that the forces behind the strikers were prepared, if necessary, to attack every industry in the country, and inflict untold loss upon thousands of innocent sufferers, ’ rather than fail to . carry every point in dispute.” In concluding its 1 article the “Post” holds that the Council’s resistance has established three propositions which it behoves all local bodies, employers, legislators, and citizens to road, mark, and inwardly digest: (1) No dispute between employer and employee can honcefovth be regarded as hounded by the limits of the industry or the place in which it occurs (2) even wdicre their original intentions are to observe the law, discontented employees are likely to fie induced by persons not concerned in the dispute to break the law in order to put employer and public at the greatest possible disadvantage and (3) the same influences may bo relied on to aim at a total paralysis of commerce and industry throughout the country by a general strike if the narrow grievances at stake in the original dispute cannot lie otherwise redressed and that such is the alphabet of the gospel that has been proclaimed in the clearest terms by the Wellington tranvway strike.