GOVERNOR OF BANK OF ENGLAND

Southland Times, Issue 23664, 12 November 1938, Page 7

GOVERNOR OF BANK OF ENGLAND

MR MONTAGU NORMAN RECOMMENDED .(Received November 11, 7.50 p.m.) LONDON, November 10. The directors of the Bank of England recommended the re-election of Mr Montagu Norman and Mr Basil Catterns as governor and deputy-governor of the Dank of England; ' Mr Montagu Collet Norman, who has been governor of the Bank of England since 1920, is banking born, says John Gunther in "Inside Europe.” Everything is permitted him. because he has been governor longer than any other man in history. He wears flowing capes, black slouch hats and a waggish beard; his house on Campden Hill is decorated with extraordinary silken elegance.

Yet he takes the tube to work every morning, and likes to be the last man on the escalator. He enjoys appearing to be mysterious, and he has made only three public speeches in his life. Once, amiably chatting with a banker friend, Mr Norman listened imperviously to the argument that the gold standard would impoverish Britain in the long run. "Tell me,” Mr Norman is reported to have asked, “do you think it better to be rich than to be poor?” His friend replied: “Well, I have been poor, and now I am fairly rich, and I hope to be richer.” Mr Norman replied that he was not sure but that countries which were too rich went to pieces; he pointed out the example of Periclean Athens and Imperial Rome. His friend did not reveal the substance of the conversation; the news that the governor of the Bank of England might, consider it his duty to impoverish his country for the country’s benefit would not have been too popular.

Dr. Hugh Dalton, who was Under-Secre-tary for Foreign Affairs in the second Labour Government, records how he became aware that Mr Norman pursued a foreign policy quite his own. No matter what the real Foreign Office might be doing. Mr Norman's policy proceeded on the basis that “unless Germany is economically strong and prosperous it is impossible to balance the onesided political strength of France on the Continent.” When the Credit Anstalt, the great Rothschild bank, crashed in Vienna in 1931, Mr Norman on his own responsibility advanced to Austria enough credit, it was hoped, to tide the crisis over. Two years later the loan was transferred from the books of the bank to the Treasury; that is, the British taxpayer.