LORD MELCHETT DEAD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20758, 29 December 1930, Page 9

LORD MELCHETT DEAD.

KING'S MESSAGE TO WIDOW.

A GREAT INDUSTRIALIST.

SERVICES TO THE STATE.

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received December 28. 5.5 p.m.)

LONDON, Dec. 27 The death has occurred of Lord Mel chett.

King George has sent a message of sympathy to Lady Melchett, recognising tho constancy with which Lord Melchett devoted his energies to the improvement of the country's industrial life. The newspapers, while generally agreeing that Lord Melchett's political career was comparatively undistinguished, unanimously pay tributes to his business genius and sincerity, and his attempts to reconcile the masters and tho men. They express regret at his loss, at a critical period in the national life.

The Observer says England loses an inspiring impulse in scientific industry, a man of the highest intellectual power. The Sunday Express says Lord Melchett was the greatest of all British industrialists.

Alfred Moritz Mond, first Baron Melchett, created in 1928, was born at Farnworth, Lancashire, in October, 1868. His father was Dr. Ludwig Mond, who settled in England and helped to found the great alkali works of Brunner, Mond and Company, based on the Cheshire salt deposits.

Alfred Mond was educated at Cheltenham, St. John's College, Cambridge, and Edinburgh. Called to tho Bar, he practised for a time in tho provinces, but later joined his father's firm, of which he is chairman. He is also chairman of tho Mond Nickel Company and of Synthetic Ammonia and Nitrates, Limited, and is on the board of many other industrial concerns—anthracite collieries, chemical works and power gns plants and banks and financial institutions.

In 1927 the huge £56,000,000 combine, Imperial Chemical Industries, was formed, with Lord Melchett as chairman, and in April, 1928, a great world scheme to finance industry in any part of tho globe with him at its head was announced. Tho nominal capital of this concern—the Finance Company of Great Britain and A.merica, Limited—is £2,040,000, but the money behind it is practically unlimited. Ihe chief shareholders are Imperial Chen icil Industries and the Chase Securities Corporation of New York. It is expected to lead to co-operation with financiers in Germany and other European countries.

One of Lord Melchett's ideas was that a. central bank should be formed to issue a single gold currency for the whole of Europe, as this would be a great advantage to trade. In December, 1927, a group of employers led by him suggested a joint conference with the Trades Unions Congress on industrial reorganisation and be'ter industrial relations. The idea was adopted and the conferences began in 1928, though some trade unions held aloof. An intervie a* in Rome, in which Mond was said to have pronounced in favour of Fascism led to demands that, the Trades Unions Congress should break off the industrial co-operation discussions, but he explained that he did not use the words attributed to him and had not suggested the uso of Fascist methods outside Italy. Sir Alfred Mond entered Parliament in 1906 as a Liberal. He was created a baronet in 1910. In 1916 he became First Commissioner of Works, holding tho post ti'l 1921, when he was appointed Minister of Health. He resigned wilh Mr. Lloyd George in November, 1922. In December, 1923, he lost his seat, but was returned for Carmarthenshire at a by-elec-tion in August, 1924. Up to January, 1926, he was prominent as a free trader, n:i anti-Socialist and a vigorous critic of the Conservative Government, of which hi) said early in 1926 that "the ship of State was being steered by people who seemed to have neither compass nor charts. nor any port, while the captain appeared to be indifferent whether the vessel was on tho sandbanks or the rocks." On January 23, 1926, however, he decided to join the Conservatives in consequence of a breach with Lloyd George over the latter's land policy involving the nationalisation of agricultural land, to which Mond was strongly opposed. He also announced that he did not propose to vacate his seat, since at the last election he had polled the whole antiSocialist vote and had pledged himself to support a Conservative rather than a Socialistic Government, thereby securing Conservative backing. Ilis political views and the reasons for his change of party are set forth in his book, "Industry and Politics." In June, 1928, he was raised to the peerage as Lord Melchett. During his visit.to Palestine in 1928 as chairman of the expert commission for its exploitation, he advocated cordial cooperation between the Arabs and the Jews for the development of the country, but urged that the work there should be conducted on business and not on philar.thropic lines, if capital was to be attracted. He arranged to put Palestine tobacco on the British market. While in Irak he was threatened by a mob of 10,000 Arabs, who had got the idea that the object of his visit was to introduce 7.lr.rist principles there. A member of the Royal Institution, he presided over the chemical industries section of the Franco-British Exhibition of 1508. He was also president of the Mansion House Association on Railway and Canal Traffic. He has written much on the chemical industries, on which he can speak as an expert. In 1894 he married Miss Violet Goetz, who was made a Dame of the British Empire for her work on tho Council for the Employment of Women and her maintenance of a war hospital at Melchett Court, the family seat in Hants. One of their daughters is married to Viscount Erleigh, the son and heir of the Marquis of Reading, former Viceroy of Tndia. •