“P.C. BYNG”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 454, 8 September 1928, Page 26

“P.C. BYNG”

VISCOUNT WHO WILL COMMAND LONDON’S MIGHTY POLICE FORCE

A PERSONAL SKETCH

grggMßMjßn HE appointment of Genera! Julian Byng, first Baron of Vimy and of Thorpe-le-Soken, to sucAavSKi!!®! ceed the former Provost —* m 1 J ' Marshal-General, Sir William Horwood, as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, surprised most people outside the Cabinet circle; but probably no one quite so much as Lord Byng himself (says a writer in “Time and Tide”). For when he received the Home Secretary’s somewhat excited summons the distinguished soldier and ex-Governor-G,eneral was living the quiet retired life of an elderly country gentleman, finished now with active affairs, in his peaceful Essex demesne. A tall, deliberate, blue-eyed man, still straight and vigorous at sixtyfive, notably calm, with a penetrating straight glance—quite a personage, even in old clothes and shirt-sleeves, pruning rose bushes in the flower garden. Very English, very remote from radicalism. A stern disciplinarian, throughout his military life, there is nothing of the drill-sergeant about him, and he has always known how to capture the hearts of the men he has commanded —and in his last phase, at thd end of the Great War, he was commanding 300,000 soldiers, who

swore by “Old Byng.” This one fact implies qualities of the heart and mind not always found in generals. He is' the sort of man who can have a drink and talk with a farm hand without condescending. In a Bolshevik revolution he would be one of the first to be shot, because he would look dangerous—a tall man who believes in law, order, authority, and can rally men and persuade them to follow him even when he is not wearing a uniform. In the Great War Byng rose to the command of the Third Army. He had the Canadian Corps, known at the front as "the Byng Boys,” in his command. In the subsequent distribution of praise and rewards to the leaders of the nation’s armed forces, Julian Byng received the thanks of Parliament, £30,000, and a barony. His career seemed over. But in 1921 a GovernorGeneral was required to succeed the Duke of Devonshire in Canada. It was a critical time. The Canada of 1921 was by no means the Canada of 1914. A nationalistic spirit had been stimulated and strengthened by the pominion’s contribution to the general war. The whole question of in-ter-Empire relations was in the melt-ing-pot. Moreover, America, enormously enriched, awake to her vast power, had become a factor not to be disregarded in connection with Canada. Canada was demanding her own Minister at Washington. The tie with the mother island was not exactly breaking, but obviously some new human strands were required to be woven in. The Prince of Wales acquired a ranch in Canada and re-awak-ened interest in the personal side of the common Crown. And by a happy chance there was Lord Byng available as Governor-General. “CATCHING A CRAB” Out went Lord Byng, and was a quite remarkable success—until, rowing in heavy and unfamiliar political seas, he caught a crab. He did not sit in state in his official residence, and emerge only on official and ceremonious occasions. He began to move about in the most unconventional manner, like a country gentleman over a new estate. He could, and did, talk to the Canadian farmers in their own language. He would go on long informal motor treks, and climb back fences to talk to homesteaders in the backwoods. He covered thousands of miles in this manner. And then he made an unfortunate faux pas. In the execution of his duties as GovernorGeneral he got involved in the bitter fight between the Tory, Mr. Meighan, and the Liberal, Mr. Mackenzie King, and made a slip of judgment which caused him to favour an Imperialistic Tory Party leader as against a Nationalistic Radical. The whole constitutional issue was raised. But that man himself was so well liked and respected that even the aggrieved Mr. Mackenzie King was obliged to pay public tribute to Lord Byng, and declare that his quarrel was with the system, not the man. And so presently Lord Byng came home, and no doubt breathed a sigh of relief to be done with politicians—whom soldiers never can understand—and went into a well-earned retirement on his modest estate at Thorpe-le-Soken, in the unfashionable county of Essex, and proceeded to live the quiet life of a retired general without either the money or the inclination to indulge in the high or luxurious life, and to keep himself in hard physical condition mainly by sawing wood (he is a passionate woodsman, in this resembling Gladstone, except that Gladstone, a more violent man, liked an axe, whereas Byng prefers a saw). He emerged into the public eye only twice afterwards. Once was when he refused to pay to the Crown Office and the Home Office fees amounting to £755 on his elevation from a barony to a viscomtey, on the ground that he ought not to be required to pay

for an honour which a politician obtains for nothing; and the other was when he went in civilian attire to the Royal banquet to President Doumergue last year, and was turned away for being incorrectly attired, the banquet being a full-dress affair. Such is the man who suddenly receives the Home Secretary’s “stern call to duty”—in plain words, is begged to get the police, the Home Secretary and the Government out o£ a mess, due largely to the failure of the Horwood regime at Scotland Yard, but chiefly to the lack of attention and foresight and energy which has prevented that overhaul of the police machine, and readjustment of methods, which was due years ago. Having taken the job reluctantly, and after his own nominee had refused it with scorn, Lord Byng stipulates that he shall be able to retire at will, and that the Home Secretary can sack Jiim at will! He brings tact, great prestige, authority and an incomparable experience in the command and control of men to his curious task of setting things right at police headquarters and sweetening the “subacid” relations that have grown up between the public and the police (if the Home Secretary’s diagnosis is correct).