A GREAT YEAR FOR THE HUGHES FAMILY

Charles E. Hughes of America, W. M. Hughes of Australia, Sir Sam Hughes of Canada

FREDERICK JAMES GREGG

THE date of the discovery of Wales by the Hughes family is lost in the dawn of history. But the year 1916 will be remembered as the date of the discovery of the Hughes family by all the world, or at least by that part of it which knows something about what is useful and instructive.

The three Hughes—the three Hughes graces, as it were—adorn the public life of the United States of America, of Australia and of Canada, surely a truly pioneering clan this, which could produce, almost at the same time, Charles Evans Hughes of New York, William Morris Hughes of Sydney, N.S.W., and Sir Sam Hughes of Toronto, Ont.

It is a curious coincidence that all three—the candidate for the Presidency, the Premier of the Australian Commonwealth and the Minister of Munitions and Defence of the Dominion—were schoolmasters in their youth. The phenomenon is all the more strange because there were many who had come of late to express impatience with what they called the "pedagogue in politics." These must resign themselves to the fact that the schoolmaster is abroad and that there is no way of escaping him.

AHUGHES is apparently bound to be a believer in the theory of growing up with a community. Take the case of Charles Evans Hughes. He is a living example of the truth of the maxim that the great thing is to know when to go to New York, and the next great thing is to know when to leave it. He arrived at the right moment, moved to Albany at the right moment, removed to Washington at the right moment, sat tight until the right moment, and then accepted the nomination for the highest office in the land at the right moment, judging from the anger of the statesmen on the other side.

AHUGHES doesn't believe that a rolling stone gathers no moss. On the contrary it is a belief in the family that change of occupation is a good thing in itself, provided that the individual has the proper capacity for adapting himself to a new environment. As an investigator, as Governor of the State, as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Hon. Charles Evans Hughes looked and acted each part to perfection, and his friends believe that he would be just as much at home in the place known as the White House.

NO doubt Mr. Hughes, on account of the Celtic blood in his veins, is more or less of a fatalist. The progressive steps in his career would seem to justfy a weakness like that on his part. Few investigators sail serenely into high office, and those who thought that he had been safely tucked away in bed on the bench simply failed to see that a popular demand was capable of following a man into that placid and guarded region in spite of all the protests of the practical politicians, who are so-called because they are not practical at the difficult and fateful moment.

THE totally unexpected has also marked the life of the Right Honourable William Morris Hughes. He went out to Australia to grow up with that country as late as 1884. There, with a true Hughes touch, he was described as engaging in "various occupations." He became a member of the Bar and a leader in organizing labor. He became a member of the colonial legislature of New South Wales, and on the formation of the Federation got a seat as Laborite in the Parliament of the Commonwealth. He was attorneygeneral on two occasions, and is now Prime Minister of all Australia.

The last sort of a man who might be expected to turn into a notable Imperialist. He who was a born agitator, a mob orator, one setting class against class, has done more since the War began than any other individual in public life in the British Dominions, to consolidate the opinion of the Empire on the subject of how the big job should be carried through and what should be done afterward to make the world a safe place to live in for a long time to come. That is the paradox involved in the case of this particular Hughes.

Hughes went to England and was received with open distrust by statesmen who feared that this wild man from the Antipodes might "start something." He did. There was no Opposition, no body of critics in Parliament to examine what was being done by the Coalition Cabinet of the placid and comfortable Mr. Asquith. For four long months Mr. Hughes went up and down England and told the public the truth about itself, the truth about the administration and its policies, and the truth about the British Laborites. All those concerned had to take the castigation inflicted by the energetic and outspoken man from overseas. By degrees, as the crowds that gathered to hear him grew steadily larger, members of the Government, who hated him, put their pride in their pockets, and actually appeared side by side with him at his meetings, to hear him describe iii terms like this those who were not doing their duty: "I know that no appeal to patriotism, of which indeed they are incapable, can,influence them, for that robust and passionate love of country is an inherent gift of virile and resolute men. That pallid, feeble, sickly and spineless thing in which they wrap themselves is the measure of their own anaemic souls."

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THE story that Mr. Hughes told to British audiences was one of steady Teutonic pressure before the War. Australian industries had fallen steadily into German hands. After the beginning of hostilities Mr. Hughes set to work and succeeded in wiping all the enemy agencies out of the Commonwealth. "There is only one way in which you can do this thing," he told the English, "do it with such thoroughness that the Germans will avoid this country as though it were the very plague itself. We have compelled the companies to buy out. We have robbed no man, German or Englishman, of his fair rights. Every share that a German held has .been bought at market price. So much is their due. Let them have their pound of flesh, but, in God's name, let them be gone." This is the sort of policy that Mr. Hughes wished the English to follow. The speeches of the Colonial Minister struck home.

SIR Sam Hughes, the third of the trio, joined the Canadian Militia early in life. At that time this body was considered more ornamental than useful. A "drill shed," as they call an armory up north, was associated rather with agreeable dances and nice looking uniforms than with hard and serviceable military work. The South African War gave the first opportunity to the Canadian volunteer to show what he had in him. But the part taken by the troops from the Dominion no more gave a hint of the thousand men a day of the present than the British land forces of Wellington's time afforded any anticipation of the five millions raised by Lord Kitchener. The paradox of the case of Sir Sam lies in this, that in attaching himself to the militia, because he had a taste for soldiering, he took the step which was to bring him into touch with the big affairs of the Empire in the period of its greatest trial. As a member of the Dominion Cabinet in charge of the Canadian forces, their raising and equipment, he was exposed to political attacks. One was launched while he was at the front in Flanders. He returned at once. There was a Parliamentary inquiry out of which he came with flying colors.

THE populace began to call Charles Evans Hughes "Charlie" on his Western tour. William Morris Hughes used to be always "Bill" to his Labor friends in Australia. Sir Samuel Hughes is always "Sam" in Canada. A Hughes can unbend when he wants to.