PORTRAIT OF MR. HUGHES.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 March 1921, Page 7

PORTRAIT OF MR. HUGHES.

IN “AN ONLOOKER IN FRANCE.” z London, March 18. Major Sir William Orpen’s book, “An Onlooker in France,” just published by Williams and Norgate, reproduces a portrait of Mr. W. M. Hughes, Commonwealth Premier, of whom he says: “Mr. Hughes made a big mark at the conference. He is as deaf as a post, but has a cutting wit. M. Clemenceau and he used to have great jokes, and I have often seen them rocking with laughter together, M. ’Clemenceau’s grey-gloved bands on Mr. Hughes’s shoulders, leaning over him and shouting into Mr. Hughes’s enormous deaf ears. He visited me one day, bringing a copy of tire Times, and said ‘Good morning.’ I asked him to sit in the chair. He sat and read the paper for about half 1 an hour, and after murmuring something I was unable to catch, rose and left. Next day he ’phoned me to ask if I wished another sitting, and I said, ‘No, sir.’ This was my only personal meeting with Mr. Hughes, but I gathered that he is extremely ’cute and cunning, which is quite possible from the general make-up of his head.” The portrait by Major Orpen shows Mr. Hughes in .a side-face position, sitting, reading the newspaper.—Aus.N.Z. Cable Assn.