Laval Leaving

Impatient to handshake President Herbert Hoover, Premier Pierre Laval last week shoved ahead two days the sailing date of the French Line ship that will carry him, 5. S. lie de France. Promptly in several hundred European hotels other passengers booked on the lie de France seized the usual ink-clogged pens, dipped them furiously into the familiar purple fluid, scratched and splattered torrents of protest.

On second thought, M. Laval saw that even in the name of Goodwill he must not tear tourists two days early from their Paris, must let them have their last rounds of champagne cocktails, buy their last svelte gowns, paste jewels, guaranteed antiques and copies of My Life & Loves by Frank Harris. The He de France, it was hastily announced, will keep to her original sailing date, Oct. 16. President Hoover will wait.

In a suite close to Premier Laval's will sail a handsome Romanov sure to be feted this winter by smartest U. S. hostesses, H. I. H. Dmitri, Grand Duke of Russia, on his first prospecting visit to the U. S.

Brother of best-selling Grand Duchess (Education of a Princess) Marie, tall, fascinating Dmitri assisted Prince Felix Youssoupov to poison, shoot and drown the notorious "Black Monk" Gregory Efimovitch Rasputin. Hostesses are warned that the question "Do tell us all about it!" instantly freezes Grand Duke Dmitri into hurt hauteur.

Buzzing about the French Premier as he prepared to sail was Belgian Foreign Minister Paul Hymans. He was said to be urging M. Laval to listen sympathetically when Mr. Hoover asks France to join in a worldwide economy program of lessened armaments. This, from the French point of view, is a "sacrifice of security" which few Frenchmen are prepared to make. But Belgium, less militaristic than France, is anxious to economize on cannon.

As part of his preparations M. Laval decided to sound out the British Government. He invited to Paris the great Lord Reading, special Envoy to the U. S. in 1917, today British Foreign Secretary. London papers pictured Lord Reading as about to make two points to M. Laval: 1) that Britain stands with the U. S. in favor of armament cuts; 2) that Britain still urgently desires the International Fiscal Conference proposed some time ago by Philip Snowden, hopes that M. Laval will discuss it with Mr. Hoover.

Naturally France and the U. S. are both reluctant to enter a conference which Britain is urging chiefly with hopes of strengthening her pound and drawing more French and U. S. gold into world circulation. But Whitehall and Threadneedle Street seemed to think last week that progress can be made by urging the conference as a sine qua non without which general prosperity simply cannot be restored. Such a conference would doubtless decide that War Debts and Reparations should be cancelled (a view most "international" U. S. bankers already hold); might also decide that the Gold Standard is inadequate to back world credit needs (an alternative being bimetallism) and might finally pave the way, according to opinion heard in London last week, for some sort of broad agreement by the Great Powers to restrain overproduction and "rationalize" world trade.

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