State Library of NSW
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established by the King for recognition of conspicuous war services & to which ladies are admitted as "Dames". A list has been published of English names, but no Australian names have yet appeared. Speaking to Shine the other day I asked him to enquire when it would be published. You know where he would make the enquiries. Today he came to me with the news that no list was known in this State. The Governor General has sent in a list, & old Stricky heard of it, & demanded the right to know what N.S.W. people were on it. This information the G.G. flatly refused to give him, telling him it was within the powers of the G.G. to make any recommendations he liked, without reference to a State Governor. So the list has been prepared by Lady Helen, & will be settled by the Colonial office without reference to any State Governor or Government, and considering that Adrian Knox was blocked by the last Government I presume his friends at Federal Government House are determined to circumvent any opposition this time. It will be the friends of Lady Helen, & no one else, whose names will be on the list when it does come out, & this will make the list very interesting. The Langer Owens, J. O. Fairfaxes, Jimmie Ashtons, Mrs MacKinnon, Edith Walker, Hanbury Davies, & all the rest of them, must really be kept in suspense. I think we know even more than most of them know themselves.
I was saying to Mother tonight that as far as the one thing of baubles goes we had our luck in when Stricky got our names through in 1915 just before he began to fall out violently with the G.G. & all his people, & just before Lady Helen fixed her baleful eye on me over those letters I wrote about the breakdown of the Red Cross in Egypt. These are however very little things compared with all the sorrow that has since come on us. Mother has just
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