"Sorrow & Suffering"

Why people who buy stock in a munitions firm and cash their dividend checks with alacrity should turn up at stockholders' meetings to make trouble is an endless source of honest wonder to General Sir Herbert Alexander Lawrence, Chairman of Vickers Ltd.

Sir Herbert has received from the U. S. the Distinguished Service Order, from Japan the Order of the Rising Sun and a hatful of European decorations including the Cross of the Legion of Honor and from George V the accolade of knighthood with the Grand Cross of the Order of The Bath.

Last week as seamy-faced Sir Herbert faced his annual stockholders' meeting & ordeal, up popped that spruce iron tycoon, the Earl of Dudley, to chirp: "Stockholders, I appeal to you to protect your Chairman against sniping. The sooner the Government and everyone else realizes that Vickers is a business and not a philanthropic institution the better."

This, from the Noble Earl, was well meant. As the glare of prying publicity increases, directors of munitions trusts are becoming cagier and Sir Herbert soon revealed that he is making progress. At the stockholders' meeting last year a sniping coupon-cutter produced German magazines carrying Vickers advertisements, loudly drew the only possible inference. Last week there seemed to be no more such advertisements and when the Chairman was questioned about German sales he replied as though shocked:

"Certainly Vickers is selling no goods to Germany or anyone of that kind!"

Embarrassing last year was a stockholder's sarcastic sermon on the theme that in Balkan countries the correspondent of the London Times always seemed to be a munitions salesman for Vickers, and vice versa. There was also the clergyman-stockholder with the loud, ironic laugh at many of Sir Herbert's statements--not-withstanding the fact that the Church of England's Clergy Pension Institution owns more Vickers shares than the Chairman himself.

Last week things went better. Amid a shareholders' chorus of "Hear! Hear!" the Chairman excoriated U. S. Senators as vulgar snoops, welcomed investigation by Britain's new Royal Commission.

"Our books, our files, papers and everything are at the Commissioner's disposal," said Sir Herbert. "Orders on hand are satisfactory and your board is considering the possibility of further development. But it does not seek to bring any influence to bear to increase the demand for armaments in this or any other country. . . .

"The directors and shareholders know to their cost the sorrow and suffering war entails, the waste of human life and material, the financial loss posterity must bear and the damage done to the economic structure of the world. . . . The maintenance of peace is in the best interests of both your company and the community generally."

Some few years ago, when Disarmament was baying at Vickers' door, the Chairman said that "further reduction in armaments would be a serious matter for your company." Subsequent annual Vickers net profits: 1932, -L-529,038; 1933, -L-543,364; 1934, -L-613,261.

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