FIVE STRENUOUS WEEKS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17947, 26 November 1932, Page 15

FIVE STRENUOUS WEEKS

EMINENT MEN SEEN HON. DOWNIE STEWART IN LONDON Pleasant recollection of five strenuous weeks in London, during which lie met men eminent in politics, banking and economics, were revived by the Minister of Finance, the Hon. W. Downie Stewart, in an interview .in Wellington on his return from England. “I did not go once to a theatre or sec one gallery," said Mr. Stewart. “I was kept busy and'hardly moved from London except at week-end?. Everyone was extremely kind. I had many callers at my hotel and I received more invitations to dinners and similar functions than I could have hoped to fulfil had. I been in London six months.

“Typical of the courtesy extended to mo was the kindness of Mr. Montagu Norman, who is regarded by some as the greatest statesman in Britain since the war. He called on me at the Hotel during my second day in London and he was the last to farewell me before I left for the boat train. There arc men on bank directorates who have never met Mr. Norman and who in the normal course would never expect to meet him. They told me I was a very lucky man to have had such opportunities. Indeed, I was given facilities for meeting men I hud wanted to meet for years.

“Aii amazingly keen interest in New Zealand affairs is taken by people in Britain, both for business and sentimental reasons,’’ said Mr. Stewart. “Among those I mot was Sir Basil Blackett who, of course, was in the Dominion a few years ago, Sir Henry Strakosch, Sir George Schuster, Sir Otto Niemeyer, and Mr. J. M. Keynes. ’ ’