In the Public Eye

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 145, 20 June 1936, Page 21

In the Public Eye

Until he became Prime Minister ol " Belgium in April last year, the name of M. van Zeeland was practically unknown to the general public abroad. Among bankers and economists he has already, at the age of 42, won a world-wide reputation. His speech to the Chamber when he announced the divorce of the Belga from gold, revealed his determination to take firm measures in the crisis in his country's fortunes. M. van Zeeland is a man of swift decisions, wide experience, and deep learning. Almost before he readied manhood he had proved himself a man of action. The outbreak of war found him a student at Louvain. Before the end of 1914 he had won the Military Cross on the battlefield. Later he was taken prisoner, and eventually evacuated to Switzerland, broken in health. For many young men such experiences might have ended or diverted a promising career. But after the Armistice M. van Zeeland went back to his books at the now war-shattered Louvain. He took his degree, and has continued to maintain a close association with the university. Eight years ago he was appointed a professor there, and founded the Institute of Economic Sciences, which was to win noteworthy succcss. But M. van Zeeland chosc banking rather than an academic career. Again lie showed himself the man of action. He was not content to sit at an administrative desk; he was not satisfied with a mere book-knowledge of the economic problems in which he had read so deeply. He set himself to make a first-hand ' study, by personal investigation, of the international economic and financial ; situation. He began with America— the America of pre-slump days. The 1 immediate occasion of his first visit there was a mission on behalf of the ' ' Belgian Relief Commission. But he stayed for a year to study economic and financial sciences at Princeton. 1 Though not yet 30, M. van Zeeland was already an authority on post-war . finance when he returned from the ' United States to enter the National Bank of Belgium in 1922. Thus, in the j same year he was chosen as one of the bank's representatives at the Genoa 1 International Economic Conference. ] This task brought him into further prominence. Two years later, he carried out a . special mission to Czechoslovakia with ! such success that on his return he was appointed secretary of the National £ Bank. Another financial mission took ' him to Greece. Thus equipped by 5 study, practical experience, and travel, ! M. van Zeeland became, in 1926, one of the triumvirate who direct the Na- : tional Bank of Belgium. He was then 1 33, and had been with the bank only c four years. 1 In his new sphere, problems of inter- j national finance continued to occupy a large share of his attention. He was j the youngest of the bankers who met £ in conference to decide the constitu- 1 l tion of the new Bank of International T Settlements. Even such exacting work nearer J home did not restrict M. van Zeeland's active interest in the economic problems of the wider world. In 1931 he t toured Russia, studied the achieve- f ments of the Five-Year Plan, and returned to write a book on it. c America's New Deal fascinated him. c He went on a tour of the United States, h met the men who were running the new Administration, and came back an admirer of President Roosevelt What impressed him most was the J President's driving personality and his 1 readiness to take advice from young s university professors. t Between these two tours offinvestigation, East and West, M. van Zee- c land undertook another foreign bank- n ing mission. He went to Cairo in the winter of 1931 to advise the Egyptian e Government as an independent financial expert. His interests are not n bounded by finance and economics. He F a moving spirit in creating the fund which financed Professor Piccard's balloon ascent into the strato- l< sphere. L Mr. T. W. Goodwin. " Italy, it seems, has now been bitten V by the ancestry craze, for the other day a prize was presented To an Italian peasant whose family Has tilled sl the soil in the same spot since the year b> 1018, says the "Manchester Guardian." ti However, if such records are held to 01 be worth recording the mere English P are also in a position to enter the lists as winners. We can boast, in the per- if son of Thomas William Goodwin, a n" farm labourer of Berden in Essex, a A man whose forbears have not only M farmed land in the neighbourhood for la many hundreds of years but who him- b; self is a direct descendant of Earl ti Godwin, the father of King Harold. 2, Goodwin's ancestry was traced a fi: few years ago, and it was the local di vicar who conveyed to him the glad news that in his veins ran some of the sc bluest blood in England. He is a M typical Saxon, blue-eyed and fair- Pi haired, and his home is only a few sc miles from where Edith, King Harold's d( wife (and therefore one of Goodwin's Is ancestors) lies buried. Close by is the w ancient Saxon manor house inhabited, cc it is said, by another ancient family— P; direct descendants of Dick Turpin. w To those who reverence this sort of er thing Mr. Goodwin's genealogical H status seems enviable, especially as A (according to the Genealogical Society) only fifteen families at Die most can ni now claim to have had ancestors who j m came over with the Conqueror. The si rest of us may murmur with W. S. in Gilbert: I e> Blue blond! ltlun Moor]? Of what avail art ihou fa To snvfi us now? »n Though from I/ip riixKlf ( !Blu© blood! .

1 The principal aim in the reconstruc--2 tion of the Austrian Cabinet was termination of the dualism in the leader- .. ship of the State, which, sincc the 2 death of Chancellor EngeJbert Doilfuss, 1 has existed as a result of the historic ) development of the new Austria, 2 stated Dr. Kurt von Schuschnigg re- - cently. This unification was necessary i not because Prince Starhembcrg (the 3 ousted Vice-Chancellor) and I perhaps' disagreed on fundamental principles t but on account of the differences be- ) tween us in small matters, which, 1 nevertheless, threatened to disturb the work of constructing a corporative Austria. My new Government will quicken : the pace of reconstruction along the lines laid down by Doilfuss. The spirit and aim of this new Government are unchangeably the same as those of my previous Governments. It is based on the same forces as before and includes all true Austrians who stand ior a free and independent country. I have emphasised repeatedly that an authoritarian regime is not synonymous with arbitrary government. Our Constitution includes cflicicnt safeguards against it. One of these safeguards is the provision for elections within the various corporations, the first of which already has been held in the Province of Vornrlbcrg, with the result that 80 per cent, of nil Unvotes were given to the candidates of the Patriotic Front. May I add that in this province, the cradle of real peasant! democracy, 80 per cent, of the voting population went to the polls. I firmly intend to hold similar elections in all the other provinces as soon as possible. I am fully convinced that it is quite wrong to use such definitions, when discussing Austria's domestic problems, [ as are customary in other countries i and are there fully justified, but! which only partly correspond with the development of Austria. What we do want is a Christian German Austria on a corporative basis of purely Austrian construction . that is in accord with the mentality of the Austrian people. I have already pointed out in my dispatches to the Premiers of Italy and Hungary that my new Government will continue to adhere to the proved policy of the Rome Protocol. The foreign policy of the country will remain as heretofore. At the same time we will continue with our endeavours to achieve closer economic co-opera-tion with all our other neighbours. Austria is well aware of the gratitude she owes the League of Nations for repeated support in times of economic distress. We are all the more grieved, therefore, over the present crisis in the League, which we all hope will finally surmount its difficulties and become what President Wilson thought it should be—a guarantee for justice and peace through the full, cooperation of all those who seek to attain these high aims. Mr. W. Earlc Andrews. Mr. W. Earle Andrews, general superintendent of the New York Park Department, has been named general manager of the Fair Corporation for the World Fair to be held in New York. No announcement was made as to the much-discussed architecture of the fair but Mr. Grover A. Whalen, president of the corporation, said the report I of the board's architectural committee, i headed by Percy S. Straus, had been ' acted upon. Controller Frank J. Taylor, Timothy . J. Sullivan, acting president of the Board of Aldermen, and Park Commis- < sioner Robert Moses were named with : the Mayor to represent the city on the : board. Senator John J. Dunningan, i chairman of the Joint Legislative Com- >, mittee on the World's Fair, was elected i to represent the State, while the Fed- i eral Government will be represented ' by Representative Sol Bloom, ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The treasurer of the corporation, Mr. Bayard F. Pope, also was elected to the board of directors, and Mr. Leslie S. Baker, former Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation and until recently manager of the financial relations of the Federal Housing Administration, was confirmed as assistant secretary. Mr. Andrews will not officially as- • sume his new duties until August 1, but he will devote as much of his spare time as possible in the meanwhile to srgnnising the project, and supervising I preliminary engineering features. i The next three months will be the „ intensive planning and designing months of the fair. Mr. Whalen said. As part of his Park Department job, Mr. Andrews has been working for the last six months on detailed plans for oasic improvements of the fair site in the Flushing Meadows. The initial 3,000,000-dollar (£400,000) contract for filling operations will be let by the lepartment shortly, he said. Mr. Andrews lives at East Eightysecond Street. He has been Mr. Moses's right-hand man in running the Park Department, and before the present administration took office was leputy chief engineer of the Long island State Park Commission. He ,vas in direct charge of the design and :onstruction of Jones Beach State Park and most of the Long Island parkways. At present he also is chief ;ngineer and general manager of the Henry Hudson and Marine Parkway \ulhorilies. Mr. Moses said that Allyn R. Jenlings, landscape architect, in charge of naintenance and operations, would uicceed Mr. Andrews as general superntendent of the Park Department. He expressed regret, at losing Mr. AnIrews, but said it was essential for the air to obtain "a competent, energetic ! nan to run Ihings" if it were to be a I 1 nee ess. 1