BOARD OF TRADE EFFICIENCY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 24 May 1917, Page 2

BOARD OF TRADE EFFICIENCY.

SIR ALBERT STANLEY

I Whitehall and Downing Street are strewn with, cobwebs of "Wait and See" ' in consequence of the advent ot a Government of Action_ (says Mr F. W. j Wile, in the Daily Mail. Nowhere has J the new broom swept cleaner than in j that ancient citadel of desultoriness known as the Board of Trade. Across ! its hoary portals in Whitehall Gardens there is writ to-day the emblem «f .Efficiency, the cult of quick decision a_d prompt execution. In Sir Aißert Stanley the Board has a*eceived a president I wUo makes no claim to eminence- except that of being a business man who believes in business, loves business and thinks that British business, efficiently shepherded by Government, is invinclible. ''Efficiency." That is the t«r_a j which springs most naturally to the lips ' when you survey Sir Albert Stanley. I He exudes it with every word and j gesture^ He conveys another impression—of being a "big" man not only in statmr.e, for he is a good 6ft. In height and straight as a Guardsman, but in breadth of vision and grasp of what he calls his "fascinating job." Sir Albert lived in the United States until ton years ago, though he is a Derbyshire man by birth and ancestry. As he has devoted his entire life to eleooric traction, his bearing may not be indecor- | ously described as that of a man known ' ; across the ocean as "a live wire." Obviously, too, to borrow another Edisonian metaphor, he is filled to the brim with dynamic .energy. It is safe to prophesy (that Whitehall Gardens will throb never before when the Stanley dynamo begins generating efficiency kilowatts ! at top speed. The new President of the Board of | trade is Mr Lloyd George's youngest Minister. He will be 42 this year. He has the head and physiognomy of an actor.bn- Herbert Tree might have looked like him twenty years ago Hardworking men in the United States grow bald and grey prematurely, and Sir Albert Stanley's dome-force testifies to the brain he expended in Hustledand. He entered The field of electric transportation when it was virgin soil, even in the United States, and helped to till it through every, stage of" its progression. After organising and managing the ttramways of the city of Detroit Michigan, he was called rio the general management of the Public Service elec- I j trie railways of New Jersey. It was I from that post that Sir Albert Stanley : was summoned in 1907 to take charge i of the tradtion situation in London The ! present federation of tubes, omnibuses and tramways under one centralised control is his creation. i q I believe I am right in saying that \ bir Albert looks upon the conditions' confronting him in Whitehall Gardens as not dissimilar to those which he tackled successively, and successfully, ■ m Detroit, New Jersey, and London! ■ He looks upon the Board of Trade as a • great institution whose widely diversi- : Jed interests need "fusing," just as the tramway lines of Detroit and New Jersey and London required it. He regards ' the Presidency of the Board essentially as a i-usmess man's portfolio and not an opportunity for speech-making in the House of Commons. He is busy on tar-sighted measures to root out the pre-war hold of German industrial cap- ! ital m such branches as the dy e trade He sees no reason why German steel ™d.e™r displace' British .steel in the United Kingdom. He is unconventionai enoiigh to think that there is little that • l>ritons cannot produce for themselves ' He wants every British trade and Sritwlv r'ld^ r '-lar -7c or small- t0 lo<>K upon Whitehall Gardens as if it were a great banking institution, ready with sound dounsel, keen interest, and paternal pride m the development of British commerce. - ■ A Minister inspired by sucb enthusi- ! asm for his "job" is a guarantee that the Department, most concerned with tfritam a economic well-being is at last in the right hands. •