Conference

Round an ample table at the Hotel Royal in aristocratic Evianles-Bains three famed U. S. citizens lifted their glasses high last week. What was in the glasses was nobody's business. But what was Secretary Mellon, who had just returned from conferring with Finance Minister Count Volpi of Italy, saying to Benjamin Strong, Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who had just conferred at Antibes, French Riviera, with Mr. Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, and at Geneva, Switzerland, with Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, Director of the German Reichsbank? What, moreover, was Agent General of Reparations S. Parker Gilbert saying to Secretary Mellon and Mr. Strong?

A newsgatherer, sharp of ear, might have imagined he heard snatches of momentous conversation: "Uh-huh. . . .No, peas. . . . Uh? . . .Yes, I guess I will.. . . Vichy, unless we can get White Rock, please. . . ."

O'er the cables came "news" that Messrs. Mellon, Strong and Gilbert discussed privately and portentously last week the interdependent structure of reparations, debts.