The Guardian from London, Greater London, England · 13

13 THE CHOICE BEFORE WORLD ZIONISTS THE ROYAL FAMILY IN SCOTLAND THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN, MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1937 Full Text of Dr. Weizmann's Speech to the Congress THE TWO TESTS OF PARTITION Faith in the Future of the Jewish Nation The address delivered by . Dr. Weizmann at the Zionist Congress at Zurich last Wednesday, August 4, was so memorable an utterance that we think it important to offer our readers a verbatim report It is not easy to present a complete and systematic report upon the political Mtuation. Months may have to pass ijcfore it is possible to take an objective view of the kaleidoscopic changes in events, or to place them in proper perspective. The task is especially hard for those of us who are in the thick of the fight. I must refer you to the printed report which the executive will lay before you, and to the relevant documents which many delegates will have opportunity to study in com mittee-, and I shall confine myself to giving a general review of the situation, which I shall try to make as impartial ;is possible. But no man can entirely prevent his human feelings from colouring such a report. Otherwise a gramophone record would do as well. Though I do not mean to enter into a long historical review, I feel I must take l29 for my starting-point. In that ear an attack was launched against the National Home. It was followed by a commission of inquiry. The Hope-Simpson Report and the White Paper of JK.iU engaged our attention tor some considerable time thereafter. It was the Report of the Shaw Commission which originated the idea that the root of the disturbances and discontent in Palestine lay in the gradual but un relenting process oi ousting the Arabs from their land. From this arose the legend of the " displaced Arabs," of the creation of a landless proletariat as a hotbed ot disanection and disorder. The results of an expert inquiry were submitted by Sir John Hope-Simpson to the Liovernment in an ingenious rteuort, which declared that no further land was available in Palestine for colonisation. si that every new settler must displace an old one. you recall the calculation The ratio of acreage to population yielded 90 dunams of land to every fellah, the soil was poor, the amount insufficient to maintain a peasant family in tolerable conditions. There was no more room, though the development of Huleh and other waste lands might pro vide lor some lurtner zu.UUU families. THE BLOWS OF 1930 This teport was the basis of the White Paper of 1930, which went even beyond the Shaw Commission and the Hope- Simpson Report. The Government drew the conclusion that immigration and land purchase must be restricted. It looked like the end of our work. And at this juncture it was also proposed to establish a Legislative Council, in fulfilment of the provisions of the mandate. In these proposals, two negative and one positive, the White Paper dealt us a heavy blow, and it wounded us deeply through its tone and its manner of dealing with our affairs. To me it left no choice but to resign the office of president of the Zionist Organisation and of the Jewish Agency. My resignation was followed by that of several leading personalities in the agency, among them Mr. Felix Warburg and the late Lord Melchett. -The interregnum lasted for a while. British public opinion I emphasise the point was highly dissatisfied with the position which had been created. You will recall the letters to the " Times " from the Conservative leaders Baldwin, Amery, and Sir Austen Chamberlain and from the distinguished jurists Lord Hausham and Sir John Simon. All this caused the MacDonald Government to set up a Cabinet Committee, with whom we were invited to enter into discus sion. The negotiations led to an interpretation of the White Paper which clarified and restored several essential points in the mandate. It was embodied in the Prime Minister's letter of February. 1931. which the Arabs call the " Black Letter " in contradistinc tion to the White Paper. The ensuing period restored the confidence of the Jewish people in the possibilities of constructive -effort in Palestine. These were the happiest and most prosperous years in the short period of our work under the mandate. Immigration increased, new forces were released, colonies were founded, new possibilities appeared as if by magic, and grew with the rise of immigration. You know the figures for those years. In 1935 the total of immigrants exceeded 60.000. I must here observe that during these four years I was out of office such is my fate ! " Two years ago you did me the honour to place me once more at the head of the movement : and you will recall how at the last congress we took otnee with heavy hearts. But there was one comfort, and it is my solemn duty to recall it : we emerged from that congress united in heart. X am not fond of coalitions. - but that particular coalition has withstood the strain of hard days, and it was a great thing that the whole executive and the president of the General Council faced like one man the perils ot the next two years. In these two years we had not WOBB The 12-guinnEdiswin b Brltish-boilt to five years of efficient, economical to safeguard carpets aixf. fabrics. It possesses too, many refinements and Improvements and is Guaran- -teed for 12 months as well.- ... The cash price of the Ediswan., complete, with accessories, is 12 12s., but deferred -terms can be arranged. 21- deposit secures immeattte aeuverj. Ash tw RE mKSSMBB REGAL ELECTRIC CO. 27 MAZENOSE STREET, MANCHESTER, 2 ' " (Sole DimHnunn tec ImtmOate tad YodaMie) a moment s rjeace. T An nnt thic to vaunt the results hut th times unparalleled in the history of the iiuiiai movement and perhaps even in "ic History oi Jewry. THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL PLAN The times were dark, storm brooded over the Mediterranean, and an evil wind blew from Africa. This was the moment selected by our ormonents to press lor a Legislative Council to stab the National Home in the back Facts had utterly disproved the findings or the &haw and Hope-Simpson reports. xneir place must be filled bv the Legislative Council. The economic complaints were but a camouflage for the political resistance of the Arabs, L , 5 , ",ese arguments were sna.,i.ciea iney clamoured for represent ative government. vurs is a democratic movement, informed by an ethical irloai - ,i,v,;nv. to create the maximum of moral and values, tne greatest good for the greatest number. We democrats u-e, now icrced to resist a proposal which was in aDDearancp itpmnrnim We did so, and in so doing we were supported by the best part of British puunc opinion, iou recall the Parlia mentary debates on the Legislative Council which killed the scheme. And here I wish publicly to state certain facts. When some of our friends in the House of Pnmmnnt i;4 me the honour of inquiring whether I uiougni mat sucn a debate would be usetui i advised against it. I was not in iavour or displaying the full support which the mandate I do not say the Jews, but the mandate which forms an integral part of British policy in the Near East received from British public opinion. And no sooner haH the rfohntn taken place than voices were raised in Palestinian official circles alleging inn. -mi.- jews wielded enormous influence in England, that thpv haH staged the debate, and thereby gravely added to the difficulties of the Palestine THE "RICH" JEWS AND THE "POOR" ARABS From lhat moment a curtain fell between us. Even during the preceding period we had not been on a honeymoon with the Palestine Administration. We did not always see eye to eye, but after the debate the curtain fell. I stress the point, because in the utterances of our opponents, Arab and British, and even in the report of the Royal Commission we detect the old familiar note: here is a nation drawing its strength from every land. If you need a brain from the United States, you wire to Stephen Wise; if you need an expert irom Argentina, there too you have representatives. You have enormous resources of mind and money. We cannot convince the world that we are a poor nation; that the rich, with few exceptions, are indifferent to the Zionist cause. A member of the Royal Commission said to me : " The Jews can do anything, and therefore it matters little under what conditions you work. You will manage somehow." Very different is the attitude towards the Arabs. For sentimental or other reasons, the Question is asked. How can the poor, primitive Arabs stand up to the overwhelming strength ot tne Jews They must be protected. This note echoes even in the report of the Royal Commission. Enormous power is ascribed to the Jewish Agency alivah (would that it were so), in reality w are a poor people, ground down, and faced with annihilation unless we reintegrate in a national home. And such an alternative calls forth the strength of a nation. This is the secret of our success. One more word about this point The Arabs ' have proved that they are by no mean so weak. They have shown discipline and endurance. They have money for political work ; more money than your president. The Zionist budget for political work is miserably small. We are a democratic organisation which has to account for its money. THE DISTURBANCES The Arabs had funds at their disposal, and we know neither the source nor the purity thereof. . But there was money in plenty, and for six months this " weak, backward, helpless people " held out against the organised might of the British Empire. Had the Jews attempted as much, with all their alleged cleverness and their iron discipline, they would not have been allowed to succeed. This was the situation which the executive had to face. It was complicated still further by the Italo-Abyssinian war. Whatever its outcome, the consequences in the Near East were bound to impede our work. An Italian defeat would have lowered the prestige of Europeans, .while the victory was bound to affect the prestige of England. The atmospheric pressure increased, the barometer pointed to storm. The Jewish position can be rendered in the words of the Talmud, T.5t " i bwv mwww mum m mam m 2m . If the jug falls uoon the stone, woe to the jug. If the stone falls upon the jug, woe to the jug." I shall not enter into the history of the disturbances ; it is engraved on the memory of every Zionist. With bated breath the Jewish public scanned the daily bulletins. Nor shall I sneak of the victims, the sufferings, or the losses. as l said yesterday, our work went on in Palestine and outside. I should add that, for the first time, a Jewish Defence Force was established, which took its share in protecting our people. You will put it to our credit that, in spite of pressure from all sides, even from friends, we refused to acquiesce even in a temporary suspension of immigration. The number of immigrants was small, but there were immigrants. The door may only have stood ajar, but il was not locKed. A CONFUSED ADMINISTRATION The calling in of Arabs from outside Palestine was one of the means of pres sure employed by a somewhat confused Civil Service. I know not where the idea originated in Jerusalem, in London, or in both places. In England such things need not be done they just occur. They take shape, and so it occurred that the Foreien Minister of Iraq was called upon to mediate, not as between Jews and Arabs but between England and the Arabs, at the expense of the Jews. And lo ! a miracle haonened. This mediator, Nuri Pasha, who for a few weeks was the central figure (and even distinguished Jew sallied forth to negotiate with him) suddenly vanished and was Foreign Minister no longer. It is singular that a Government, with all its sources of information and its Secret Service (as popular a theme as the power of the Jews), did not know that this mighty mediator was on the verge or overtnrow in nis own country. Next, kings were called in foreign kings intervened in the affairs of Palestine. And now a question. To this day it is incomprehensible to me whv the Palestine Administration should have acted as they did. Some sav thev were hostile to the Jews : I do not think they were either hostile or friendly. That disturbances should continue for six months involves greater injury to the British than to the Jews. We are inured to such things through the ages. We have a capacity for withstanding them. A CHALLENGE TO ENGLAND But how could England, how could her pro-consuls tolerate such a challenge to the organised power of the British Empire on the part of a handful of men ? I cannot understand it. and England owes an answer to herself, as well as to us (Applause). Perhaps I should say once more things are not done in England, they occur. And so it happened that for six months Jenin and JNablus, and Generalissimo Kawkji, called check to British power. But a more convincing explanation is required. Then London decided to dispatch an expeditionary force to Palestine. This consisted of a considerable part of the British army, which is not large. It came, it saw, and it did nothing it was not allowed to do anything. The prestige of the England which is dear to all of us was endangered by the Palestine Administration. But for the comings and goings of this expeditionary force we had to foot the bill. The 6,000,000 surplus in the Palestinian Treasury, of which we had been -proud and out of which we had hoped that some crumbs might fall to us, is melting awav. THE ROYAL COMMISSION Next came the Royal Commission. Its members were serious men, honestly intent on probing their subject. They were completely unbiased, but coming as they did into this atmosphere of hesitation and weakness, they were bound to suppose that the disturbances were the expression of a deep and widely ramified movement. Trans-jordan, Syria, Iraq, India, the entire Near and Middle East seethe with excitement over Palestine such ideas must have crossed the minds of the Commissioners. I don't know what they were told, I am ignorant of the evidence given by the officials, but one may surmise that to excuse their own inactivity they must have alleged forces to have been at work far greater than appeared on the surface. It is certainly a mistake to underrate your opponent, but equally so to overrate him. I suspect the Administration of having done its best to overrate him. The burden of my own evidence was that things in Palestine should never have been allowed to reach that pass. Never never never. And I cannot imagine that such a state of affairs would have been tolerated in any other part of the British Empire. But when I said this, not once, but ten times, with all my strength, out of all the bitterness in my heart, the answer was : Maybe, but things are as they Eire. We are told that the mandate is a complicated document. But we are not its authors. British statesmen, not the Jewish Agency, are its authors. The practice of many years has proved it complicated ; what Jewish affairs are not complicated ? Nevertheless, on the basis of this document remarkable things have been achieved, as is confirmed by the report of the Royal Commission. THE BLAME The blame lies not on the mandate, now made a scapegoat ; it lies with those who should have carried out the mandate calmly, with strength and dignity, and who showed instead half-heartedness, weakness, and doubt. The Royal Commission itself suggests that it might have been easier at the outset to proclaim the Jewish State than to carry on in the twilight ot these twenty years. The thing might then have been carried through with a swing. There was no lack of understanding for it in the world at that time, not even among the Arabs. At that time the Emir Feisul was held to be able to speak for the Arabs, but now it is the Mufti. With Feisul, who fully understood our aims; we were able to reach an agreement. In 1919 and 1920 there were other Arabs as well as Feisul with whom we could negotiate. But when they saw infirmity of purpose, obstacles Deraetually placed in our oath, a principle of balance adopted by which the Administration merely tolerated our work, and reduced its own contribution to maintaining order, with less and less determination, till in 1936 it very nearly relinquished even that attempt, the Arab extremists saw their chance : press on,-and the English will rave in. . And now concession has reached such a pitch that after the economic comnlaints had been rejected by the Royal Commission, the political aspect is suddenly brought to the fare : immigration must no: longer be regulated by the economic absorptive capacity of Palestine, but according to some psychological principled Whoever heard that the immigration officer must be a psychologist? And whose psychology is to be the criterion? Evidently the Mufti's. There can be no doubt about his psychology. Not one Jew is to enter the gates of Palestine. For him there The King and Queen and the two Princesses driving to Crathie Church, near Balmoral, yesterday. is only one Jewish gate, and it is marked " Exit," not " Entrance." Where is the psychological limit which could satisfy the enemies of the National Home ? DESTROYING THE NATIONAL HOME This proposal and the other " palliatives " which you will find in the report spell the destruction of the National Home. We shall resist these proposals before the eyes of the world, openly and honestly, with every means at our disposal. (Prolonged applause.) This is a breach of the promise made to us in a solemn hour, at an hour of crisis for the British Empire, and the blow is the more cruel because it falls upon us in the hour of our own supreme crisis. I say this, I, who for twenty years have made it my life-work to explain the Jewish people to the British, and the British people to the Jews. And I say it to you, who have so often girded at me, and attacked! me, just because I had taken that task jUpon myself. But the limit has been reached. We. cannot even discuss such proposals, there is no psychological criterion for immigration. Gates are opened or closed on definite principles. j I say to the Mandatory Power : You shall not outrage the Jewish nation. You shall not play fast and loose with the Jewish people. Say to us frankly that the National Home is closed, and we shall know where we stand. But this trifling with a nation bleeding from a thousand wounds must not be done by the British whose Empire is built on moral principles that mighty Empire must not commit this sin against the People of the Book. Tell us the truth. This at least we have deserved. Dr. Weizmann, deeply moved, "asks ior a areas oi aye minutes.J IMMIGRATION RESTRICTION Among the many things which we fail to understand is the latest decree of H.M. Government to restrict our immigration to 8,000 for the next eight months. Why this hurried decision, in advance of the meeting of the Mandates Commission- and while nothing is yet settled ? We look upon the decree as an infringement of the mandate, and public opinion will likewise condemn it. I have now finished with criticisms. If I have exDressed them more sharnlv than is my wont, it is because through me speatcs tne pain oi one who has held his peace for twenty years. But even in this solemn moment of resnonsi- bility I would bid this Congress and all Jews remember, in the midst of their disappointment and despite the bitter injustice they have suffered, that the Palestine Administration and England are not identical. As to that there must te no mistake. There is another England, and let us thank God for it. The voice of this England was heard in the two Houses of Parliament. That a Jew. Lord Melchett. should have said what he has said we expected from the son of Alfred Mond, and we expect yet more from him in future. (Loud applause.) That the newly created Lord Samuel should have said what he has said did not take us bv surprise. But there were other sneakers. leaders of the British nation, drawn irom an parties and an classes, lords and commoners ; among them the head of the Anglican Church raised his nowerf ul voice, "Lema'an -Zion lo echeshe" (For tne sae or .ion l cannot oe silent). Further, remember that EnelanH. although beset by anxious cares, has yet been the only Power which has made a serious attempt to contribute to the solution of the Jewish problem. The present oimcuiues must not for a moment blind us to this fact. A WORD TO THE ARAB PEOPLE Permit me, at" this historic juncture. to say a word to the Arab people. We know that the Mufti and Kawkji are not the Arab nation. In the present world those who have bombs and revolvers at command wield political power. But in the history of a nation their life is like one day, even if it extends over years. There is an Arab nation with a glorious past. To that nation we have stretched, out our hand, and do so even now but on one condition. Just as we wish them to overcome their crisis and to revert to the great tradition of a mighty and civilised Arab people, so must they know that we have the right to build our home in Erez Israel, harming no one, helping all. When they acknow ledge this we snau reach common ground, and I hope for the time when we shall once more recognise each cither. The Arabs will recall that in the greatest period of their history, whether in Bagdad or in--Cordova,-we have co-operated in preserving the treasures of European culture. Now,- as ever, we are in all seriousness and sincerity prepared to negotiate ; but this must be done, by us. who are .entrusted with the responsibility, not i by self-appointed mediators in time of crisis. LORD SAMUEL'S SPEECH We do not require Lord ; Samuel's advice to recognise . Arab nationalism. (Applause. When -have we ever denied it ? Do not our records in congress and elsewhere bear witness to our desire to see the day when the two national groups would meet together to -build up our common' country? Lord Samuel would have. .done, better to jt"nr his advice to the other side.' I am aware, of Lord Samuel's merits. I have defended him in congress before now. But it has pained me that a Jew of bis-standing should have spoken as he did. Of course, he did not speak as a Jew. He was careful, he spoke as a British Deer so he thought. And he. had no word to spare for the great Jewish tragedy he. the chairman of the British Council for German Jewry. Why, my Lord, say why ? I have now reached the most important part of my speech. The report of the Royal Commission contains a revolutionary proposal which has deeply moved all Jewry : the proposal to found a Jewish State in a reduced area within the bounds of Erez Israel. There are two tests whereby such a proposal must be judged. But I will say at once that I do not discuss the scheme contained in the report. This particular scheme is inacceptable. (Prolonged applause.) I speak of the idea, the principle, the perspectives which the proposal opens out ; " if long views are taken," to use the words of the Colonial Secretary m the letter I read out last night. As I am not discussing the scheme of the Royal Commission I need not enter into its details. We shall discuss tnem in committee. Furthermore, you mast remember that the British Government itself has not declared its acceptance of this scheme but only of the principle. TWO TESTS OF PARTITION I consider that two criteria have to be applied in appraising such a principle. The first does it offer a basis for a genuine growth of Jewish life ? I mean both in quality and in volume : does it offer a basis tor tne development of our young Palestinian culture, of which the report speaks with true respect ! uoes tnis principle afford a basis for building up such a Jewish lile as we picture, ior rearing true men and women, yr creating a Jewish agriculture, industry, literature, &c. in short, all that the ideal of Zionism comprises .' This is one test. or our great teacher, Achad Ha'am, who is with us no longer, it might have Been tne oniy one. But times have changed, and Jewish history, which, alas ! for the most part, is not our to mould, faces us with a tragic problem. We must therefore apply yet another test. Does the nronosal contribute to the solution of the Jewish problem a problem pregnant with danger to ourselves and to the world? Does the proposal stand the two tests? It is the duty of the Congress to give a clear answer. The answer is awaited in Warsaw, m aucnarest, and in Berlin. And those who have the luck to be under the protection of a liberal regime must bethink themselves before they offer a reply. THE CHOICE The point here is not to calculate in percentages what part of Erez Israel is being offered to us. We can all count. But our task is to forecast the answer which life will give to the two tests. Is it possible to do this, or is it not ? I believe it is. I believe it is. I believe an answer can be given. Nay, more, I believe it must be given. The choice lies between a Jewish minority in the whole of Palestine or a compact Jewish State in a part. I now address myself to those with whom I have not always been politir ally at one. I speak not as a Misrachi but as a deeply religious man, although not a strict observer of. the religious ritual. I make a sharp distinction between the present realities and the Messianic hope, which is part of our very selves, a hope embedded in our traditions and sanctified by the martyrdom of thousands of years, a hope which the nation cannot forget without ceasing to be a nation. A time will come when there shall be neither enemies nor frontiers, when war shall be no more, and men will be secure in the dignity of man. Then Erez Israel will be ours. I told the Commission : God has promised Erez Israel to the Jews. This is our charter. But we are men of our own time, with limited horizons, heavily laden with responsibility towards the generations to come. I told the Royal Commission that the hopes of 6,000,000 Jews are centred on emigration. Then I was asked : " But can you bring 6.000,000 to Palestine ? " I replied : " No. I am acquainted with the laws of physics and chemistry and I know the force of material factors. In our generation I divide the figure by three, and you can see in that the deDth of the Jewish tragedy two millions of youth, with their lives before them, who have lost the most elementary of rights, tne right to worK." "THE OLD ONES WILL PASS . . The old ones will pass, they will bear their fate or they will not. They are dust, economic and moral dust in a cruel world. - And again I thought of our tradition. What is tradition ? It is telescoped memory. We remember. Thousands of years ago we heard the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and my words are but a weak echo of what was said by our Judges, our Singers, and our Prophets. Two millions, and perhaps less ; ." Scheerith Hapleta " only a branch shall survive. We have to accept it. The rest we must leave to the future, to our youth. If they feel and suffer as we do. they will find the way. " Beach arith Hajamim " in the fullness of time. I say to my Orthodox friends : Bethink you on what ground you stand. Never in. 2,000 years has the responsibility been so great as now. We have neither the wisdom nor the strength to bear the responsibility. But Fate has laid' it upon us, and Fate does not disclose her secrets. We can only do the possible. If the proposal opens a way, then I, who for some forty years have done all that in me lies, who have given my all to the movement, "then I shall say Yes, and I trust that you will do likewise. We shall request you, at one stage of our deliberations, to accept a resolution, authorising the executive to negotiate a scheme which will meet the two tests. Then the executive will bring it back to you, and you will decide. I pray that sacred strength may be given to us aU to find a way, and that, in advancing, we may preserve intact our national. unity, for it is all we have. At the close of Dr. Weizmann's speech the assembly rose and sang the Jewish ' National ... Anthem, the Hatikvah, the Song of Hope. DEATH OF MISS A. E. F. HORNIMAN Patron of Drama and Founder of Repertory Movement Miss Horniman (whose death is reported on another page) was born in 1860 at Forest Hill, London, educated privately and at the Slade School: it was during the years of Continental travel which followed that she became an enthusiastic student of that revolutionary dramatic movement which swept Europe from Christiania in the eighties and reached England with the Independent Theatre of the early nineties. Few of us preserve through life the enthusiasms of youth ; fewer still are able to carry enthusiasms into action; and the career of Miss Horniman illustrates what can be accomplished in the theatre by a moderately wealthy, rightly inspired, liberal patron of dramatic art. If the lustre both of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, and of the Uaiety Theatre, Manchester, is dimmed now, that is only to say that what Miss Horniman established before the war was largely disestablished by the war ; nor is it just to take too narrow, too parochial a view of her work. She held the light to a candle which shines throughout the world. To give dates. In 1894 Miss Horniman provided funds for a season at the former Avenue Theatre, London (now the Playhouse), of three plays, "A Comedy of Sighs,' by John Todhunter, "The Land of Heart's Desire," by W. B. Yeats, and "Arms and the Man." bv Bernard J Shaw. She was thus the first to give Mr. Shaw a place in the regular as opposed to the occasional theatre, " Experts in theatrical management," writes Mr. Shaw after stating the receipts of his play, "will contem plate that figure with a grim smile." But Miss Horniman persisted, and in 1904 opened the Abbey Theatre, in Dublin. Some spadework towards the founding of a National Irish Theatre had been done by Mr. George Moore, Ur. uouglas Hyde, and Mr. Edward Martyn. but it was not until Miss Horniman came forward with an annual subsidy that the fine amateur company of actors headed by the Fays secured a theatre of their own, took professional status, and became the inspiration of Yeats, Synge, and Lady Gregory. This is not to nut the cart before the horse. The classic plays of J. M. Synge were a sequel to the founding of the Abbey Theatre, and to the acting of its company. They were, like all good plays, written to be acted,- and failing the theatre in which to act them and the acting idiom they demanded would not have been written. We owe them, at one remove, to Miss Horniman as surely as we owe to her, at a further remove, that Mr. DEATH OF LADY TREE Career of Fifty Years on the Stage iady Tree, the actress and widow of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, died on Saturday in University College Hospital, London, where she had undergone an operation. She was 72 years of age. Lady Tree had a record of more than fifty years on the London stage. Born Helen Maud Holt, she married Beerbohm Tree twenty-three years later, and she was fond . of joking about her comparative unimportance as Mrs. Tree and later as Lady Tree. She was a witty woman, and by no means an unimportant actress. Her voice, grating Lady Tree in the film "The Private Life of Henry VIII." rather' than pleasant, began as a handicap in any kind of part verging on the romantic and ended as a great' advantage in the' many character parts in which latterly she' won her own celebrity. She was educated at Queen's College in Harley Street, . where she. .gained honours in classics nigh, enough to enable her to act 'at least once in a Greek play. : She' made her first professional appearance in the year of her marriage, the occasion being a ' revival of W. S. Gilbert's " Sweethearts." Under Hare - and- Kendal, and -later -under, her own husband's management, she was seen during' the next ten years in a - - Lennox Robinson's "The White- headed Boy" entertained London with ex-Abbey Theatre players like Miss Sara Allgood, Miss Maire O'Neill, and Mr. Arthur Sinclair in 1920 and 1921. To her the Irish-Americans owe it that there are plays of the Irish school to be acted in the hundreds of Little Art Theatres of the United States. In September, 1907, Miss Horniman's company made its first appearance, at the Midland Theatre, Manchester, and in the spring of 1908 the Gaiety Theatre was opened under her management. The word " repertory " was associated, to her annoyance, with the type of work done by Miss Horniman's company, but the description, if strictly a misnomer, must remain for want of a better. "Non commercial is clumsy and inaccurate : " not obviously commercial " is too clumsy ; and in spite of herself Miss Horniman was parent of the repertory movement in the theatre. The parallel movement in the United States is the Little Theatre Movement, and it is to be gathered from such American books as "The New-Movement in the Theatre," by Sheldon Cheney, that the two chief (and antagonistic) influences on that movement have been the work of Gordon Craig and the visit of Miss Horniman's company in plays by Shaw, Galsworthy. Bennett, and Masefield. A special' pleader could make out a case for the creation by Miss Horniman's company of a Lancashire drama comparable with the Irish plays, but, though the production of plays by local authors was an essential and an admirable part of the Gaiety Theatre's work, the Lancashire authors Houghton, Monk-house, and Brighouse are the best- known names must take their places in the repertory rank and file. Repertory, indeed, is Shaw and the rest. Shaw was the backbone of the Vtdrenne-Barker seasons at the Court Theatre in 1904-7 : he was the back bone of the Everyman Theatre in 1921 and of every repertory theatre in the interim, and Miss Horniman, sponsor of " Arms and the Man " in 1894, had the merit of original vision in this matter of Shaw. But for the great performances of Miss Horniman's company one looks not so much to Shaw as to the rest. In the first years there was in Mr. Iden Payne a stage director of brilliant, if erratic, genius. Under him Mr. Charles McEvoy's realistic "David Ballard," Galsworthy's "The Silver Box," Masefield's "Nan" (with Mona Limerick as Nan). Verhaeren's " The Cloister," and the gloriously witty production of "The' Knight of the Burning Pestle" stand out in memory. Under his successor, Mr. Lewis Casson, "Hindle Wakes" and "Julius Caesar" were conspicuous. Later, as the war was felt, Pinero and the understudies of Pinero invaded the Gaiety. Its golden age was over, and it became little different from the normal provincial theatre, housing week by week a fresh touring company till in 1921 Miss Horniman was compelled to sell it. ' The story of a failure ? Not at all. Even parochially, a war-made failure. The London stage annals are rubricated by the successes of those who, like Dame Sybil Thorndike, were once members of Miss Horniman's company. Repertory, in spite of war's disintegration of the finer things, is a living idea. Even that byproduct of Miss Horniman's company Lancashire drama is known wherever English plays are acted. Miss Horniman herself took nothing from Manchester except an honorary degree from the University ; she gave it Miss Kbrniman's company ; she enlivened its platforms with witty if discursive speeches. She was steering great drama (a ship was symbolic in her programmes) into harbour, and it was not her fault that it staggered against the rock of a European war. It staggered, but the repertory idea, which was her idea, though not her name, remains tenaciously alive. distinguished series of plays by Pinero, Haddon Chambers, Grundy, Stevenson, Wilde, Sheridan, and Shakespeare. In 1899 because of her public recitations of Kipling's " The Absent-Minded Beggar " she was able to hand over the sum of 1,700 to the South African War Fund. On two occasions she appeared at royal gatherings by command ; at Balmoral in " The Red Lamp " in 1894. and at Windsor in " A Man's Shadow " in 1909. She went into management on her own account in 1902 and appeared soon afterwards in many of the ornate revivals of classical plays at His Majesty's. Always remarkably quick for study, she once played Beatrice in a revival of " Much Ado About Nothing " at twenty-four hours' notice. Lady Tree appeared with all the great players of her time : with the Kendals in "The Likeness of the Night," with H. B. Irving, and with Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Since the death of her husband in 1917 she had been seen in several Barrie revivals, in plays by Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward, in Lyceum melodrama, and in several films. Most often in these later parts she would present a matron with bitter tongue and innumerable pearls. And in these characters black or brightest red was her favourite wear. As Mrs. MalanroD in two revivals of Sheridan's "The Rivals" Lady Tree made during the last few years the major successes of her career. She gave to the famous part an air ot good breeding which it hardly ever is made to possess. Mrs. Mala prop usually looks like a theatrical landlady; Lady Tree gave her the appearance of a Raebum portrait CHURCH WORKERS PUT OUT FIRE Church workers put out a fire in the crypt of St. Mark's, Kenxungton Park Road, London, yesterday, while the vicar, Dr. D. Darlington, continued m service which he was conducting when clouds of smoke began to pour, into the church. The fire occurred during the; early Communion celebration and was found to be in the electric motor operating the organ. The flames were put oufi with, buckets of. water, before' the avrrivat of the fire brigade.-