MEN IN THE NEWS TO-DAY

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 338, 20 January 1937, Page 2

MEN IN THE NEWS TO-DAY

A PACIFIST WRITER; A BISHOP, A SURGEON, AND A GERMAN SOLDIER.

The Nobel Prize-Winner One of the most tragic figures in the world to-day is Herr Carl von Ossietzky, the German-Jew, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for 1935, but who remains a prisoner of the Nazis in Germany.

I was permitted to see Herr Ossietzky and to offer him my respectful congratulations upon the award to him of the Nobel Peace Prize, says a writer in the “Manchester Guardian." The interview took place in the corridor of a w-ing in the West End Hospital, Berlin. In the company of another foreign correspondent I had stood a quarter of an hour separated, without knowing it, from the ward in which Herr von Ossietzky is lying, by the entrance door only. One of the physicians attending Herr von Ossietzky eventually courteously granted permission for me to see him.

Standing waiting in the hospital corridor while the physician entered Herr von Ossietzky’s ward one looked out upon the outlines of bare trees thrown up by the- soiled white misty light of a November afternoon. The ward door at last opened, and slowly a short but stooping figure, clad in the striped “blues” of a general hospital patient, appeared. Though his movements were made with the deliberation of obvious effort, Herr von Ossietzky walked unaided, and was able to remain standing .beside the doctor. His head was slightly bowed and his ascetic features bore an unnatural passive look. There was a flush on his cheeks, however, and possibly the occasion contributed a slight warmth in them.

Mentally he seemed to be composed. He extended the blanched, weak hand of an invalid in response to mine. I apologised for the visit arid told him that I had learned that he had been awarded the Nobel Peace P-ize. Perhaps if he felt well enough he could say a word to the English Press. With perfect dignity and a wan smile Herr von Ossietzky said he was unable in his present position to express any view upon the award. “The news,” he said, "was conveyed to me through the responsible officials about an hour ago by telegram. I am surprised and pleased.” He indicated, however, that he had not been altogether completely unprepared for the news. The hospital in which Herr von Ossietzky is a patient is a municipal institution, and enjoys the best reputation for the care and comfort of its patients of any in Berlin. It is situated in spacious grounds in the western suburbs. Herr von Ossietzky is in a general ward with a number of other patients, and is allowed to have visitors twice a week on the regular days set aside for this purpose.

Tho physician who permitted the interview told me that the ailment from which Herr von Ossietzky is suffering is capable of successful treatment.

General W. Faupel. General Wilhelm Faupel, the German Charge d’Affaires accredited to General Franco’s Government, is a soldier’s general. He won the Pour le Merite, the German V.C., during the World War, and saw a great deal of fighting before that. His father was a well-known Breslau doctor, but the Faupels could not be described as belonging to' the old military caste. When the Boxer Rising took place young Faupel volunteered for service and fought through it. In the RussoJapanese war he wished, with another adventurous young officer, to fight for the Russians, but was refused permission. He next served in the Herero and Hottentot wars, in which the small German forces fought under appalling natural difficulties against ferocious guerrilla fighters. After his service in the Great War and his subsequent command of a “Free -Corps’’ against the German Communists, he went to the Argentine. There he was responsible for placing Argentina’s army on a modern footing. He is a linguist—speaking excellent French, Spanish, Russian, and. English—good-looking, quiet, and an organiser. Bishop Barnes. There are few more outspoken churchmen in England than the Rt. Rev. Dr E. W. Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham, who has signed a plea for radical economic reform of the Church of England. Dr Barnes spent many years as a. teacher of science at Cambridge University before he moved to London as Master of the Temple. He has brought to his work

a passion for clear statement that is the result of his scientific training—his doctorate is one of science, and he is a fellow of the Royal Society—and the mind that has prepared his learned works on linear difference equations and on other mathematical matters has now been employed in the service of the Church for about 30 of the Bishop’s 62 years. He I went from the Temple to be Canon ® of Westminster, and from there to Birmingham, where he obtained the bishopric in 1924. Dr Barnes has been famous for his quarrels. He had a strong and muchpublicised debate with Canon Bullock-Webster, of St. . Paul’s Cathedral, London, some years ago, the Canon objecting to an invitation given Dr Barnes to preach in the Cathedral. The- quarrel centred around the question of the origin of man, and the meaning of the sacraments. Dr Barnes had dismissed the difference with the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church as a difference between “Rome and Tennessee.” His religious views may be seen to. be unorthodox, for he has declared that “the whole of the Christian era is but the tick of an astronomical clock,” that measured in terms of space and time “man is quite infinitesimal,” and “physically the earth is a mere atom in a structure of inconceivable vastness.” Dr Barnes also brought upon himself a rebuke from the Archibishop of Canterbury for his manner of reference to the Anglo-Catholic movement. During the consideration of the Prayer Book issue by the Upper House of the Canterbury Convocation Dr Barnes was in conflict with Dr Purse, Anglo-Catholic Bishop of St. Albans. Dr Furse made a heated attack upon Dr Barnes, and the running fire of comment which issued from the lips of the latter provoked Dr Furse still more. Twice the Archbishop of had to check the outspoken churchman from Birmingham. Physically and facially bishops are usually robust. Bishop Barnes, however, has the manner and features of an ascetic. He is tall, spare', and stooping, and his clear-cut features, with their hint of over-sensitiveness, have the stamp of intellectuality. He is regarded as the stormy petrel of the Church, but nevertheless is admitted to be a man of brilliance, sympathy, and simplicity. Distinguished Surgeon. Sir Cedric Stanton Hicks, who is attending the Science Congress in Auckland, is a New Zealander with a distinguished career. He is Professor of Human Physiology and Pharmacology at the Adelaide University, and he has the distinction of being the youngest Knight Bachelor in the Commonwealth. He was born at Mosgiel in 1892, and was educated at Otago High School and the Otago University, w'here he won first-class honours in chemistry. He graduated B.Sc. in 1913 and M.Sc. with firstclass honours in 1914, and was also appointed New Zealand national research scholar in the same year. He served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force during the Great War. In 1922 he Obtained his M.'B. and Ch.B. degrees and later took his Ph.D. He was' awarded a Beit Fellowship and arrived in London at the end of 1923. Sir Stanton had a year at Cambridge, during which he made inquiries in Switzerland regarding goitre and lie was then chosen to go to Chicago on behalf of the Sir W. Dunn Biochemical Institute to bring back a special strain of mice tlijat spontaneously develop cancer. As the result of research at Cambridge under Professor Sir F. Gowland Hopkins, he was offered, and accepted, the position of Chemical Physiologist, Research staff, Mayo Foundation for Medical Research, Rochester, U.S.A. In 1926 he left for Adelaide to take up the newly-estaib-lished Marks Lectureship in Applied Physiology and the Sheridan Research Fellowship in Medicine. His marriage to Miss Florence Haggitt (Dunedin.) took place in 1925.