WORLD AFFAIRS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 6, 8 January 1931, Page 6

WORLD AFFAIRS.

A WEEKLY REVIEW.

(By BYSTANDER.)

To fill the gap left in this weekly record, by Christmas and New Year, this may be an opportune occasion for brief reference to a few of the distinguished people whose careers have closed since my last notes were written. Of these, the moat eminent and the most interesting was Marshal Joffre. I could not undertake, in small compass, to tell the story of his career or to attempt a full-length portrait. Controversy has raged round the man, his character and his military capacity ever since the first weeks of the Great War. But it seems to me that, while there may be room for wide differences of opinion about many of his qualities, there can be no doubt about his services to France and to the cause of the Allies. His worst detractors have maintained that he had too little imagination to grasp the dangers to which Prance was exposed, and was even too stupid to realise the enormity of his own mistakes. But the fact remains that throughout the supreme crisis that prolonged itself from the first days of August, 1914, till the Allied forces turned upon tlieir pursuers, during the first week in September, Joffrc never lost his sclf-control, and never lost grip of the whole gigantic and complex situation. More than this, he had himself and his military resources so well in liand that he was able to combine his scattered forces and to co-ordinate them in a series of movements which enabled him—aided by the ingenuity of Gallieni and the strategic and tactical skill of Foch —to turn back the tide of German invasion and achieve "the miracle of the Marne." Joffre may not have been a great military genius, but he was the man for the hour, and his name will remain associated in the world's annals for all time with that momentous triumph. Born in the Purple. The death of the Duchess of Fife, eldest daughter of Edward VII., was not likely to produce a sensation even among the most loyal devotees of Monarchy at Home. For though the Princess Royal—as the eldest daughter of our kings' is j officially entitled—she was never a conspicuous figure in either public or social life. The most interesting fact recorded in her sixty-four years was her marriage to a man who stood outside the sacred pale of royalty. Viscount Macduff was of high lineage, being descended from that "Thane of Fife" of whom the witches warned Macbeth to beware. But he was only Earl of Fife when the princess married him, and Queen Victoria did not make him-Duke of Fife till after the wedding. That was more than forty years ago, and in those far-off days, when daughters of royal houses were supposed to be destined to wed only princes of royal lineage, the event created a very distinct impression. No doubt this Princess Royal had profited by the example of her aunt Princess Louise, who married the son of the Duke of Argyle when he was only Marquess of Lorne. This marriage, too, was regarded as something of a "misalliance" in certain select royal circles. But both these incidents may serve to remind us that Britain has always possessed the most democratic Monarchy in the world, and that even Queen Victoria, with all her devotion to monarchical rights- and prerogatives, was prepared to make concessions to democratic ideals now and then. A Great Organiser. There must be still a large number of people who always failed to recognise, under the title of Lord Mclchett, that Mr. Alfred Mond who helped to build up the great chemical combine of Brunner, Mond and Co. before the close of last century. The son of a great German chemist, Mond was himself a scientist of some distinction. But his forto was not so much scientific investigation as the organisation of commercial enterprises, and it was this claim on public attention that induced the "Sunday Express" to describe him, when he died a few days ago, as "the greatest of all British industrialists." His best individual achievement was the Imperial Chemical Industries combine, formed in 1927 with a capital of £50,000,000. But probably Alfred Mond's greatest work for British industry was the promotion of what has come to be called the "rationalisation" of industries —that is, the organisation of industrial undertakings on co-operative lines, employers and wage-earners sharing responsibility in varyng degrees and working amicably together for the attainment of common ends. This principle of "rationalisation" has already been applied at least in a tentative fashion to various departments of the woollen and cotton industries, and in spite of much hostility from certain quarters it has been endorsed by a majority of the most influential trade unions. More than this, it is supported by a solid body of public opinion as a means of reconciling effectively the conflicting interests of Capital and Labour, and it is chiefly for this reason, rather than for his personal Wealth cr his extraordinary financial and administrative ability, that the name of Alfred Mond, Lord Melchett, will always hold a high place in Britain's industrial annals. The Passing of a Dynasty. The death of Vintila Bratiano, once Prime Minister of Rumania, practically closes the career of a political dynasty which, for the past sixty years, has exercised great influence and authority in the Balkans and throughout Eastern Europe. Jon Bratiano, who belonged to the 'fifties and 'sixties of the nineteenth century, was a great patriot and the real founder of Rumanian independence.' It has been said that to him Rumania owed her freedom, her monarchy and her economic prosperity. Certainly it was largely due to the ability and courage of the elder Bratiano that the two principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia were finally united under King Ivarl of Hohenzollern. Naturally, the King trusted Bratiano, and the head of the family built up in his own country an ascendancy which endured almost unbroken for three generations. The elder son, Jon, followed in his father's footsteps, which is to gay that lie was a patriotic Rumanian, ambittous, but loyal in every way to his country and his- king. He amassed great wealth and established a fixed monopoly of political power which enabled him virtually to direct the policy of his country up to the period of the Great War. Jon Bratiano, remembering that his own king was a Hohenzollern, inclined toward the Central Powers; or it may be more accurate to say that, like many other people, he believed that the Central Powers would win. In the long run, Jonescu and the party favourable to the Allies overbore Bratiano. Rumania came into the war at a most inopportune moment, and soon suffered for her temerity. The failure of this intervention restored Bratiano to favour, and he held office in spite of the jealousy of Queen Marie, for most of the reign of Karl's unfortunate successor Ferdinand. Jon Bratiano died in 1927, but Vintila, his younger brother, who had devoted himself chiefly to economic and financial questions, ruled in his stead, and with the help of a cousin and brother-in-law maintained the traditional ascendancy of the family. Like all monopolists, the Bratianos abused their power, and no doubt the charges of corruption brought against some of the members of the group were well-founded. With the disappearance of Jon Bratiano their influence began to fail, and the death of Vintila closes a family history which is perhaps unique even in that strange theatre of dramatic ambitions and lost causes, the Balkan Peninsula.