One of the most agreeable aspects of the visit of
a Dominion cricket team to this country is the effect it has on Sir Stanley Holmes, National Liberal M.P. for Harwich. Sir Stanley ascribes his pas- sionate interest in cricket to the fact that he was born within three hundred yards of Lord's. The effect of that is to impel him to invite any overseas team regularly to dine with him at the House of Com- mons and to ask a large and assorted company, from the Prime Minister downwards, to meet them. This generous idiosyncrasy
dates back to the visit of the Australian eleven (Armstrong's) of 1921, and though the war meant a necessary interruption Sir Stanley has had the satisfaction of performing the hat trick, as he puts it, by entertaining the South Africans in 1947, the Australians in 1948 and the New Zealanders this week. The dinner on Tuesday was a singular success. The visitors obviously appreciated it immensely ; the Prime Minister, in welcoming them, told an excellent story, which I will not spoil for future use by quoting it here ; the visiting captain and manager and the High Commissioner for New Zealand responded appropriately ; and Mr. Eden, in his happiest form, recalled that during his recent visit to New Zealand he had enjoyed the marvellous view over Auckland Harbour. " It can best be seen," he observed, " from the top of Mount Eden, which truth compels me, in the presence of Herbert Morrison, to confess is an extinct volcano." He also explained to the visitors that the House of Com- mons included two Liberal parties " each convinced that the other is less important than itself—rather like New Zealand, which consists of two islands, each of which insists that it is the mainland."
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