KITCHENER LEAVES AUSTRALIA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2718, 25 January 1910, Page 2

KITCHENER LEAVES AUSTRALIA.

THE MAN AUSTRALIANS SAW. “K.” AND' THE MEMORIAL. Early yesterday morning Lord Kitchener left New South Wales. Now that he has gone (says the ' Sydney “Morning Herald’!) there .are exactly the same differences of opinion as to the sort of man lie is that there ,were before lie came. • Lord Kitchener is the sort of man about .whom those differences will still be existing at the day of his death. Probably lie does not care very much. The opinions, right or wrong, will die with luni. The centuries will iudge Lord Kitchener by liis work.

G. IV. Steevens said Lord Kitchener ws a man who had cut out his human heart and made himself into a machine for the retaking of the Soudan. In one brilliant uketcli G. W. uteevens made the popular conception of Lord Kitchener, and it has remained the popular conception ever since. Probably on tlie whole it was a true sketch. But even from the little that Australians have seen of Lord Kitchener it can be added to. .

LORD KITCHENER’S SENTIMENT. Lord Kitchener is certainly not a man without sentiment. Only the day before yesterday, when liis special train for Bathurst was leaving Bowenfels, lie called Mr J. Miller, the member for the district, aside, and showed him the arrangement on tlie Bathurst programme by .which fie was to present the “Daily Mail” cups to the rillc club before he unveiled the soldiers’ memorial.

“I don’t like that,” he said. “I am a soldier. I have come hero as a soldier to unveil a memorial to soldiers.” He altered the programme at once, standing over Mr Miller'whilst he was writing it out and pointing out every detail. His whole idea was to show every respect he could to the soldiers whom the memorial commemorated, and he insisted on this. The step from which lie was to unveil the memorial lie would use for that, ceremony, and that alone. It had been arranged that the “Daily Mail” cups should be presented from the same 'jHisition. Lord Kitchener .would not have it. The ceremony of unveiling the memorial to the men lie had commanded had to take place by itself at the beginning of the programme. Lord Kitchener asked that after the unveiling there should be absolute gilenco, and the first six bars of “'God Save the King” should be played, lie .and his staff stood at the salute. Then he inspected the cadets and veterans. Afterwards at a different part of the dais he presented the rifle cups, with a speech of which Bathurst will be proud for a very long time to come.

This little ceremony in a country town is the .only piece of carefullyprepared ceremonial upon which Lord Kitchener has insisted—or indeed which he has allowed—during his visit. Lord Kitchener has abandoned all the ceremony lie could in inspecting the troops. When it came to a matter of paying respect to anen who had .fought and (some of them) died under him, lie was punctilious in insisting on it. He asked how long it would take to arrange the change of programme. Mr Miller asked .if he could have five minutes. Lord Kitchener promised to give him a clear five minutes after they arrived at Bathurst. Xnd that is probably how it was that for the first time in* Australia Lord Kitchener drove through the town at walking pace. THE TWO SPEECHES. But, with a few intervals only. Lord Kitchener seems a man wholly wrapped up in liis work. He can speak lucidly and fluently on .the subject of liis work. But be is not good at sweet speeches, and is almost nervous of them. ‘He has two stock speeches for reply to welcoming Mayors—a short one and a long one. “I thank .you very much, Mr Mayor, for your cordial welcome,” is the longer. The shorter is: “I thank you.” Lord Kitchener lias put more plain, unvarnished work into a fortnight than most inspecting officers would put into half a year. The public does not yet realise that Lord Kitchener and liis staff are taking this visit more scriously than probably any .of the military authorities in Australia. The fact is, laird Kitchener does not seem to realise that a visit of inspection can he made for fun.. Lord Kitchener and his staff since •their first landing in Australia have said practically nothing that could give ‘any hint of the opinions they are forming. They consider .ft their duty 'to report- to the Commonwealth Government at the end of the visit, and a breach of duty to report to the public beforehand. Perhaps no other military officer in tlie world could get to the end of a tour like thi-s without 'talking. But Lord Kitchener will. THE CAPITAL QUESTION.

Whilst- Lord Kitchener .was at Bathurst an enthusiastic supporter of Lyndhurst for the Federal capital wired •asking Mr Carr, M.P., for the Hayquarie district, to get Lord Kitchener s opinion as to where the administrative centre of Australia ought to he for purposes of defence. The telegram was shown to Lord ■Kitchener. Ho turned to those> standing next him. “What do you think of that?” he Baid, laughing. The main part of Lord Kitchener’s /conversation with those he meets conrsists of questions. On his trip inland jthe questions were mostly as to how Jinueh population the country would (carry, what there was for the population to do, and what population could •be put there .to do it? Aot only Lord /Kitchener hut his staff were asking -those questions. It is highly probable that Lord Kitchener thinks that .the country should carry 40 millions —•. -not four. One other opinion which •there is said to he some ground for (believing that Lord Kitchener holds .is that this country and others would Me better served by a conimander-in-<chief, if he were politically independent, than by a military board, as at present.

NOTHING INTERFERES WITH .WORK. When Lord (Kitchener is at work he does not go out of his way ience either himself or others. He goes straight to tho point, no (matter how-much he may have .to offend in doing so. On several occasions, .when .the programme of his hosts or the jpacc of lies motor car has not suited him, Lord Kitchener has altered it. .He has gone out of liis 'way in Aus--tralia to show himself complaisant as .a visitor. But he does not let pis .work suffer. AVherc he cannot get to .Government House or gome quiet coroner to write up his observations immediately after lie makes them lie gets .to work, with his staff in their shirt sleeves, in the railway train that takes him to tne next place. On every occasion where an arrangement has not kept up to time Lord Kitchener has (been at no trouble to hide big impatience. He is no ladies’ man. Probably he does not go out of his way to ,be sociable. Like Mr A. J. Balfour lie has a reputation for not reading the .newspapers; and like Mr A. J. Bali Pour he does read them. He does anything that i s useful to his work in the way (which is most direct. He has an extraordinary memory. A HARD SCHOOL. From the time he first saw war—in .the French army in 1870 —from the ■time he worked as a young engineer .officer in Cyprus and Palestine, during the time lie worked as an intelligence officer on the Malidi’s frontier, .which it was death to enter, but which he did . enter, disguised, during the .time when he worked for the relief of .Gordon and received Gordon’s sarcasm in return, until the time when lie finally won out and finished a work in .the Soudan which nobody else had made any useful attempt to begin, he had devoted himself with a whole heart to the unvarnished task of war. He had no influence behind him, and .plenty of influential people would have .liked -to see some more distinguished person, 'who had not done the work, step in and command in the campaign, and get the glory over his head. .But Kitchener had managed A- win (the confidence of the authorities. He had won his chance, as he had done jiis great work, with influence, if anything. against him, bv a singlominded .devotion his profession. The probability is that those years—half a .lifetime —spent- in that way go further towards cxfilaining the Lord Kitchener whom Australians have watched with such intense interest during .the past fortnight than most people .dream of. Whatever may be said of .Lord Kitchener, whatever enemies he has made, lie had done an immensely .great work. If the only people who criticised Lord Kitchener were the .men who had done as much he would probably not have a critic in the world.

THE FIGHT AGAINST INFLUENCE Few Australians realise what a Herculean accomplishment it really is t-o have fought against influence from the lowest .rung of the ladder in a British service to the top. It is not so much that Lord Kitchener has won promotion against influence; but that almost every inch of his great work lias boon stubbornly fought by the influence and shams and uselessness that he was .overthrowing. In India and Africa, too, it was almost the main part of liis work to overthrow them. What Lord Kitchener’s work is to be now appears to be in doubt. There seems to be some difficulty in London in knowing iwliere to put him. At the head of the General Staff in London at present there are some exceedingly able men. And it is known that Lord Kitchener and the heads of the General Staff do not see eye to eye. It is said that the authorities have some anxiety as to (how they can find work for both, and that the Mediterranean command was given to Lord Kitchener as a convenient way of keeping him out of London. If that is so, unless the Mediterranean command is given an extraordinarily wide Imperial importance, it is most unlikely that Lord Kitchener will remain in the Mediterranean long, if he goes there at all. The Empire cannot afford t-o waste the services of a man like Lord Kitchener for months—much less for years. He will arrive in England with such a knowledge of the Empire and its land defence as no man can approach to. Lord Kitchener has never courted the people; hut lie has got them behind him. And if the people of England allow him to lie -fallow when after a lifetime of work in every other part of the Empire lie at last conies home to the core of it. the usual estimate of the impression made by Lord Kitchener upon the ordinary public of the Empire must have been altogether wide of the marl-:.