A Gentleman Who Spoke

Out Of Turn

TTHE following appeared in a recent issue of the Papuan Courier ; — Lord Elibank, who thinks that Aus-* tralia is ready to hand back New Guinea to the Germans, will be remembered by our most ancient inhabitants as Charles Gideon Murray, one-time Resident Magi strate of the Western Division of Papua.

Darn’s mango-tree-lined avenue bears his name to-day.

No, he was not ennobled for his ser vices to his country. The founder of his family seems to have been that Murray who was the keeper of the King’s Castle of Caerlaverock where Charles I. was shut up in the course of his adventurous career.

Lord Elibank apparently has said the wrong thinks about Dominion politicians wherever he went. London Spectator of October 23 last has this to say about him: “Lord Elibank, who recently caused considerable annoyance in Canada by telling Canada its business, and has more recently still been causing similar annoy ance in New Zealand by telling N.Z. its business, is so far a great Imperial fig ure as tenure of the Administratorship

of St. Lucig, and the Acting Governor ship of the Windward Islands justifies that title.

“But the average Englishman, and even the average Scotsman, would have to turn (as I did) to the nearest work of reference to acquire even that amount of knowledge of Lord Elibank. He has obviously made himself better known in Canada and New Zealand than he is here, Chairman of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce of the Empire though he be. The good relations of this country with the self-governing Dominions are built largely on the sound prinicple of sparing the Dominions unsought advice about their own affairs, or even their duty to the Empire. No one ought ever to forget that.”