Resignations

Brisk, businesslike, ultraconservative Colonel Sir Maurice Hankey. permanent Secretary to the Cabinet, the Committee of Imperial Defense, and Clerk of the Privy Council, last week relinquished these posts, accepted a $9,000-a-year directorship on the Suez Canal Co. board.

Opposition M. P.s saw in this transfer another attempt by Prime Minister Chamberlain to make himself master in his own house, such as his move six months ago in "promoting" influential Sir Robert Vansittart from Permanent Undersecretary of the Foreign Office to the high-sounding but less vital and specially created post of Chief Diplomatic Adviser to the Foreign Secretary. Mr. Chamberlain is determined to make his own appointments to these permanent, advisory posts. Sartorially correct, 61-year-old Colonel Sir Maurice, dubbed "Sir Maurice the Immaculate." was far closer to previous Prime Ministers David Lloyd George, James Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin than he was to Mr. Chamberlain. From his three influential seats. Sir Maurice has of late been reported as opposing certain phases of the Government's rearmament program.

Splitting the vacated positions, the Prime Minister last week appointed as Secretary to the Cabinet Edward E. Bridges, civil servant and son of the late Poet Laureate Robert Bridges; as Clerk of the Privy Council Sir Rupert Howorth, former Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet; and as secretary to the powerful Committee of Imperial Defense, Colonel Hastings L. Ismay, heretofore Deputy Secretary.

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