HUGH DALTON
Socialist M.P. and former. Chancellor of
the Exchequer makes a declaration
on the Bank controversy.
HE parliamentary de
TH
bate on the Bank
Rate Tribunal was a loud and lively affair. I was very sorry to miss it; an attack of sciatica stopped me from taking part, as had been planned.
I
Had I spoken, 1 should have recalled a little history,
It was who with the support of the Cabinet and the enthusiastic neclaim of a great and glowing parliamentary majority-nationalised the Bank of England in 1945-6.
+
No objection
MY
stock-
MY Bank of England Aet paid
off the private holders. There were 17,000 of them, mostly dead woodl
WILE
Only 12 turned up to hear the governor, Lord Catio, give his Annual address, when it known that the new Labour Government was going to take over their bank. But this was an increase of 100 per cent
on
the attendance of the previous year!
Under ny Act the governor, deputy-governor, and court were to be appointed not by these
but drowsy stockholders
the
Crown, on the advice
Dy
ni
the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
"I want to raise your status,"
I told Lord Catio, and he made
no objection.
He had become governor in
1944, in succession to Montagu Norman.
first Ave
Cummings
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1958.
LOGAN
The day I bought
the Bank of England
GOURLAY
And oh, by the way
Aly
Khan
at UNO!
E
THE patience of the East. Advertisement in the Pakistan Times: "Golden opportunity for boys and girls interested in film line. Stardom guaranteed. Send stamps for details." Explana tion: In a Moslem country like this it is still considered wicked and immoral to follow the film line, so they have to advertise for ambitious juvenile delinquents..
XPECT riots, I was told, when I arrived in with him, left, right, left, right, hold the ill-fated airship
Karachi, or at least a few demonstrations by a post in the Cabinet or even a
loft, right, but he didn't offer me the R101. It is still the citizens, who are very displeased.
Bhorthand notetaker's job at waiting for the R101. United Nations.
The cause of their displeasure was not my arrival in Karachi, the capital of Pakistan, but the appointment of Aly Khan as Pakistan's permanent representative at United Nations."
P.S: It is not known what will hoppen to Aly Khan after the Pakistani elections, expected in November. when. May, Government's critics, Noon will become Noon.
Overheard
theNGLISH girl (air hostess) to dark-skinned gentleman in
Mr High side
one
Inge to the governor to be able
The forecast has, however, We started on the east lo receive advice from a wide turned out to be wrong. Up of the lawn (I think), and paced range of experienced men, to the time of writing I report in step towards the west side.
The range covered by mem-with something like sorrow that about turned, and so bers of the court is still 100 there have been no riots or de- turn I fell out of rep: ΠΑΣΤΟΥΡ Most of them are sul monstrations, though there have merchant bankers; too
are been violent expressions of eri- few Industrialists and rone are jointticism from every citizen i have talked to and in the newspapers.
stock bankers.
The status of part-time direc- Lors varles with different governors, Cunliffe treated them as contemptuously as he treated Ministers.
"No good governor," he said,
Cartoon
with the expertness of a leader Mr High Noon changed step of a coalition Government. He said in a soft, Oxford-educatod voice: "Of course there has been a lot of criticism of Prince Aly Khan's appointment; there is always Jot criticism of any appointment, particularly in this country, but I personally think that it is an excellent
"could be effective with anyNDER the headline "Fantastic erurt unless he could ignore Choles," a newspaper call- them as I have done and should cd Dawn said in its leader appointment. in
Was again." Norman
do
Secretary
the บ
011 the General Strike Treasury, and D meddlesome 1920, young temporary civil servant, Sir James Griga. Churchill's masterful Maynard Keynes..
Private Secretary at the dominated the court.
I asked him to continue and Under
for the he did so, years of nationalisation.
He was a very able little Srot from Aberdeen. I chall lways be very grateful to him for his co-operation and loyal backing in a difficult time.
Unlike most other governors of the Bank of England, he cume from the people. He had made his own way and owed nothing to inherited wealth or Inherited Influence.
Legal power
MY
Y Act made it quite clear that, in future, power of deelsien rested with me if I chose to use it, and not with him with the Chancellor of the
with Exchequer and vot
the governor of the Bank.
The Treasury was given legal power to sue directions to the Bank of England, and through the Bank of England to any other bank in Britain.
A resolute Chancellor of the Exchequer can now always get his own way. Probably he nord never actually Issue a direction, but only hing that, if resisted or obstructed, he has power to do so.
Same simpletons said thai b Act changed nothing. They did In the hot know their history. First World War the governor was Lord Cunliffe, a surly old tyrant.
His tale is admirably teld in Lord Beaverbrook's Men and Power He refused to see the
Bonar Law angrily refused, Curilife had sent most of our gold reserve to Canada, in case of a
German invasion. Now he refused to let the Treasury draw on it, tu pay for essential war suppiles. He handed our gold over to J. P. Morgan, the New York banker.
This
the last WAGA
straw. With the support of Lloyd George. the Prime Minister, Cua~ Bonar Law now forced Iffe's resignation.
There was much resistance intrigue in the City,
and
and The Times and Dali
Telegraph carried on
behalf.
an
organised compaign on Cunliffe's
But Bonar Law stuck to his Kains und proved that, In the Jast resort, Ministers uf the Crawl can beat the City and the Press combined,
Even then the battle was not
over.
Tressury, relates how Churchlli used to rag Norman about this When they met.
"Winston." he
says, "was a magnificent rhetorician. He also
was no talker
man
who
always
Surprised
our people."
ATTO In my time
Is
Dawn also carried a cartoon
Mr After hotel lounge iti Karachi: "Write your phone number on this bli et paper. I'd never lose it. It's I ASKED what was inside got my recipe for English York- Never travel the huge hangar standing hire pudding.
without H." Ah, the English was told it near Karachi Airport.
in- the bafing, Indestructible, was built to credible English everywhere!
.
ROUND-UP
than government
the
The prince the BONN column: "If the prince and never falled to give Aly that playboy, Aly Khan had inherit- title) has all the qualificallons ed some of his father's qualities needed for the job."
HITLER'S pensioned generais ar drawing more money from instead of just his stables,
Konrad Adenauer's West Germon the
I inquired what the quali- victims of Nazi concentration camps. appointment might have been
fications were considered less unreasonable by knowledge of the world, he has "He has 期
Now West Germany's powerful Social Democratic opposition taet, polish, and charm; he party is trying to force a bill through the Bonn Parliament to stop should make an ideal diplomat, the pensions and send Hitler's former soldiers out to earn an had a sense of mischief. Norman, Chancellor, never told me showing playboy Aly arriving Indeed, he is the most polished honest living.
and no believer that he must withhold his at UNO headquarters dressed in man I have ever met." in admitting anything in the advice until he had consulted rompers and furry fez sucking a nature of levity Into the serious the court
My comment to the effect that business of public
baby's comforter, carrying finance.
I hat once heard Rita Hayworth Churchill made many speeches Indeed, one member of his doll {fcante), and
dragging a saying the same thing about to Norman about the evil effects court has told me that Catte toy horse.
Aly was, I think, drowned by of the gold standard partly once said: "You may be sur- abusive, partly derisory.
I must say in fairness that the hard whistling of the bird Nor- prised that some of the mort man retired niore and more into important questions
one or two pro-Aly voices have in the trees, naver
been roised in поурарета his shell.
come before the court at all.
which 3 am fold Churchill, morcover "sought to
are partly exercise more pressure in the matter of Bank Rate polley than was in the bond in those days of private
Once he
enterprise.
I settle these direct with the owned by his relatives and by Chancellor."
Government oficials, particular- Mrly the Prime Minister.
The present governor, Cobbold, told the tribunal that actually ordered the governor to
on September 18 and 19 he was Individual canvassing suspend a rise in the Bank Rate, busy on which Norman ind decided, members of the court to make sure that they would not vote Mornim stood on his legal right against him when he proposed and refused, and for a long time after this there was no fun to increase the Bank Rate from. In Winston's references to the
governor.
Opposition
IN 1945 the Tories in Porila
inent furiously opposed my They England Bill sued a three-line whip against the Second Reading.
Cunliffe wag anceboged Jr. 1920 by Montagu Norman, whose long reign as Kovernor con based dalit 1944,
During the period he often Bank of gave bad advice to Ministers and must be regarded as one of those most responsible for the mass unemployment and trado depression of the inter- war period.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Body blow
MeKa
presence
~ except 31 the of Primu Minister
NORMAN clashed with Sir
Asquith.
Asquith failed 10 back Winston Churchill, when McKenna, who wis a weak man the latter was” Chancellor of anyhow.
the Exchequer from 11124 to Cuntitle grew more and 1929,
himself, but above
Churchill, on Norman's when Bonar Law became vice, had returned to the gold Chancellor, he broke him.
standard, at pre-war parity, in Cumlife had deinonded that 1925. Bonar Law should dismiss Sir This had struck a body blow Robert Chalmers, his Permanent at British exports and brought
more
ad-
five to seven per cent
and with
I was honoured by an invita- tion to meet the Prime Minister to talk about the appointment and other things.
At the moment he is a gentle man called Mailk Firoz Khan Noon, or, among his English speaking supporters, Including Aly Khan, Mr High Noon.
In uniform
German Socialist members of parliament revealed this week that Hitler's former field marshals each draw a state pension of
£213 a month.
Retired Nazis-classed na pensioned civil servants--some of whom are believed to have signed orders sending thousands of people to their death in gas chambers, each collect £230 a month
And the victims? Ex-prisoners who survived Hitler's con- centration camps, and are now bedridden invellos es a result, at the tortures they suffered, get just £51 a month from West Germany's alute-run pension scheme.
The row, which threatens to divide the West German Cabinet, was sparked off when Finance Minister Franz Eizel introduced his pensions budget.
10
NOTICED a uniformed figure During the year beginning April 1, the West German
looking down interestedly government planned to pay £451 million
Hitler's formez. one of the Arst-Door officers and soldiers and their families. from windows of the house. I may have been wrong, but it looked million. like Aly Khan, who is gucat
The budget for pensions to Nazi victims lotuls a modest £80
The Hiller pension payroll includes 75 former field marshals, in the residence, and who has generals, lieutenant-generals, únd 03 widows of high-ranking Nazi taken to wearing a new uni- | officere. form on all possible occasions,
Also drawing pensions: 120 former Nazi major-generals and He has just been made honor 104 major-generals' widows, 800 brigadiers and 300 brigadiers' Dry colonel of one of the widows, 1,725 colonels and 988 colonels' widows. I drove to the Prime Mini- Paklatani regiments, ster's residence in the centre of of course. Karachi or as near the centre as any place can be
mounted,
Mr High Noon decided he had
Such a defeat, he said, would be excessively inconvenient,"
The Attorney-General asked hin whether It would not be simpler and perfectly legal for changes in Bonk Rale to be decided by the governor
had enough fresh air, and wo deputy-governor
Karachi, which has grown in walked in step into the white- the consent of the Chancellor of population from 500,000 to near- wailed reception room. We sat the Exchequer,
ly 2,000,000 since Pakistan be- on fawn chairs beneath the came independent,
and like Loz chandeliers, Angeles, it is a collection of offered whisky and soda. suburbs scarching in the desert for a city.
.
alono,
MOSCOW
THE Soviet Antarctic Expedition has now set up its seventh and reportedly last station at what is termed the "pole of relative Bervant Inaccessibility" in the geographie centre of Antarctica,
nationality, set up there.
But Churchill, their leader,
Mr Cobbold did not seem was absent from the division,
to think much of this idea.
The chief of the Soviet Antarctic Expedition, Mikhail Somov, Nor did he speak against my
But it surely the way out
I accepted, and so did Mr who is now directing the expedition's work from Moscow, sald the B. He knew too much.
of many difficulties.
High Noon, Like good Soviet Union has no territorial claling in the Antarctic but would There has been much talk
The Prime Minister Was in Weslemised Moslem. We talked definitely want a say in what sort of regime is eventually to be recently about the part-time
There should in any case be the garden of his residence about Aly Khan's directors of the Bank, who are much closer contact and inter-pacing the green well-tended is critics have been saying he Somov said the Soviet expedition wus almost six months embarrassed by receiving secret change
International Geophysical of staff between the lawn. It might have been
an te pot even a citizen of Pakistan, behind schedule and he thought the Information frum the governor, Bank of England and the
now supposed to Year should be extended. which they must not use in Treasury,
They live too much Esh lawn but for the bou. which he is
He expressed as his "personal view", that the ideal solufian ganvillea Lowering crimson represent. Pheir own, private, business. in separate worlds.
would be to set up a permanent International scientific station near against the wall and the fact The simple remedy for, this is But, whatever happens, that it was 75 degrees at sunset
"All allly talk," said Mr the South Pole in which all countries now represented there could not to give them secret la- must bo made unquestionably in February.
Noon. "The princo may have take part.
The Soviet Union hos 183 scientists and technicians in the formation, nor vote on such clear that the final decision on
got Persian nationality. matters as the Bank Rate. They all disputed questions must rest Mr High Noon asked me if I not sure, but all his family | Antarctic. Their main base is at Mirny, and the should be purely advisory. not with tho governor, much would mind walking on the lavm Interests are here, of course, scientific stations are at Vostok, at the geo-magnetic pole, and now They should give information less with his part-time directors. with him. He had been cooped and he will certainly have Д at Sovietsknya (altitude: 11,800 feet)—the “pole" of relative to the governor rather than It must rest with the Chan-up all day in conference rooms Pakistani passport when he goes receive it. It is a great advan- cellor of the Exchequer,
and he wanted some fresh air.
The Soviet expedition intends to pull out, Somov said, with to the United Nations in New York."
those of other countries as soon as the 10V. programine is completed.
I'm
inaccessibility."
two chief
CONSERVASOCIALISM!
Love the
Welfare
∙State
THE TWO-WAY STRETCH—by Cummings
Salary
I WANTED
to know if the
MELBOURNE
LARGE ma of Russia's Sputnik Ii, capable of making a deep UNO Job would be full-time |A hole in the earth's surface, could fall from space in two uvi fully paid,
month time, according to Australian scientist Dr V. Hopper.
Hopper said the remains of the satellite, travelling at thou- "Not fully paid. He has only sands of miles an hour, could hit a elly. "But there is so much accepted a nominat salary of more sea than land on the earth's surface, it is more likely to fall one rupec a year, with expenses into the sea," he said.
of course. Only a rich man
The fall of the Sputnik, which weighs nearly three tona and could take the job, but certainly still has the body of the dog Laika aboard, would make a wonder- full time. We have R fot of ful spectacle ng It blazed into the carth's atmosphere, and preed. problem, mainly Rastyir."
pcross the sky, De Hopper said.
“It may break up as soon as it comes into our atmosphere, whether or not their now repre- but there should be plenty left to shake the earth," he said.
He considered the question
Naked Right-wing Toryism
sentative would help to solve
the problem of Kashmir, which
not-India's. "I'm afraid` neat,"
"Help! Spmathing's about to split-pardon—become a little local difficulty, 1 mona
Cummings
Pakistan feels should be theirs, MIAMI
said Mr Noon. "I'm afraid no MIAMI, city of a million people, is scandalised. It has just one can and a quick polition | A heard that four of its prominent ellizens have been accused of for Kashmir. India, and Mr fnisusing more than seven million dollars from the Federal Bay- Nehru have made it impossible | Ings and Loan Assoɑlallion they ran...
for us. Nehru is an obnoxious diplomat. It in't going to be. coay for the prince."
1 agreed it wasn't going to be eksy, for Aly Khan, the DT- shủ, chartning diplomat
A Federal Grand Jury has Indicted City Councillor Baron de "Hirschmeyer, prominent, elegantly-dressed,parnation-sporting socialite. He was the company presidrat, sotil his resignation a few days ago. --
Indicted with him and out of gaol, on a Rye-thousand-dollar bond each art Leonard Abus, treamirer, George Kennedy, direptar, and Sam Beckar, sécretary. DONANA NA
- Mr-High" Noon walked with big The charges of talking 7,004,109 dollate and using it for pet-
mal to the doce of the re« soñal industunud tu' followed two youts of quiet investigation sidanes. I carefully kept in step" 1.22.-ngrais: