Spouters & Specifiers

Spouting like so many whales, the 66 spokesmen of the 66 nations at the World Monetary and Economic Conference wallowed last week in a sea of talk so turgid that most of their fellow delegates fled, whenever possible, from the Conference hall to the lively lobbies (see above).

Fifteen-minute speeches were the rule, but tall, gaunt Chancellor Neville Chamberlain of the British Exchequer droned on for 38 minutes, read what sounded like a catalog of every job which a world conference could possibly attempt. Speaking for France broad-shouldered, big-voiced Premier Edouard Daladier called sharply for dollar and pound stabilization beside the stable gold franc. Most polished, most eloquent and most fervent was U. S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull's appeal for World co-operation and lower tariffs, but it did nothing to clear up the Conference fog as to what the U. S. Delegation is empowered specifically to propose. During the whole week only three delegates made really sharp, clean cut proposals:

Litvinov. For the Soviet Union, round, cherubic Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovich Litvinov offered a billion dollars' worth of Russian orders for the World's industrial products--but with the fatal string attached that Russia can buy only on credit, something the World is unwilling to give.

Soong. Speaking clipped Harvard English, owl-eyed Chinese Finance Minister T. V. Soong proposed to raise and stabilize silver prices, declared that if this were done China and India could buy untold quantities of the World's products and ended with a bristling declaration: "China does not subscribe to any [Japanese] 'Monroe Doctrine' for the Far East." Shanghai cables reported that Dr. Soong obtained last week a British loan of -L-20,000,000 but in London this was not confirmed.

Francqui. With 66 nations present but with the U. S., Britain and France lobbying among each other as though they, "The Big Three," were almost the whole Conference show, keen resentment kindled among minor nations, erupted from the "Copper King" of Belgium, shrewd, grizzled old Emile Francqui, close friend of King Albert.

"Should the United States, Great Britain and France fail to point a way out of the economic morass at this Conference," snapped Copper King Francqui, "the small nations of Europe will cluster about the one sole statesman capable of leadership-- MUSSOLINI. // Duce is fostering sensible ideas for united action while the Great Powers are doing nothing. The small nations, crying for leadership, will follow Mussolini."

Tipped off by M. Francqui, correspondents circulated among the delegates of Norway, Sweden. Denmark. Luxemburg and The Netherlands. They were told that recently representatives of these little nations and Belgium met in Stockholm, seriously discussed formation of an economic bloc of minor nations should the World Conference fail, and decided, in the words of a Scandinavian Delegate, "to seek a powerful leader around whom we could gather."

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