Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-10

know him so well, he managed to get
across on a most important official
mission connected with the prelimi-
naries to the debts funding negotiations
Gin which he participated with Stanley
Baldwin, and confer with the leading
American bankers for some weeks with
out any newspaper man on either side
of the Atlantic becoming aware of his
journey or of what was afoot.
One of the newspapers published
news of his return from a recent trip
| tc Paris with Pierpont Morgan thus ::
THE governor of the Bank OF England
was back at his desk this morning
Despite q careful watch he was not
seen to enter the bank, but 1t is sur
missed that he gained access disguised
as a Bank of England note"
In the course of the last decade he
has acquired cosmopolitan reputation.
| No previous governor has travelled so
widely and so frequently, or has been
| known so well to the great bankers of
the worlds capitals. The explanation
! is that his mind and character are in
| tune with the needs of the time; the
| hour has found the man.
Consulted by All Nations.
He recognizes the universally of
finance, the new interdependence
created by war and postwar conditions.
the necessity for bringing stability and
financial health again to stricken
Europe, and the necessity for taking
risks to achieve the great task of re-
Mobilization. Practically every nation
in Europe has consulted him. He has
helped many. He was the chief figure
behind the reconstruction of Austria
and Hungary, the Greek loan, the
Genoa finance conference of 1922,
which recognized shortage of gold in
view OF the ever-expanding require
ments Of world commerce and recon-
mended economizing by cooperation
between the central banks of the world
to insure the smooth working of the
gold standard.
he was elected governor by the court
OF directors Of the bank in 1919. The
term is for two years, but in the past
II the governor impressed the court
most unusually and times were a trifie
abnormal it has been known for the
governor to be reelected for a further
year OF office. This extension has
always been regarded as q special COM
pliment. England thought Montagu
Norman must be an exceptionally good
governor when in 1921 the court met
and continued him in Office until April,
1928. When he got reelected then for
another year England thought either
that something must be wrong or that
the bank had at last found the manager
of its dreams.
It is now 1880, and Norman is still
Governor. The business of reelection
seems 10 nave become automatic. He
mas broken all records and established
new tradition, and there seems to be
no reason why he should not 60 on
being reelected until he begins to feel
tired and in the mood for retiring and
devoting his leisure to his garden and
his books.
Noted for TumuItuous Career.
fair setting for this romantic and
enigmatic personality is the bank over
which he preSideS. It has had a pic
turesque and in spots a tumultuous
past: So long as the Stuarts ruled
England the people would not risk their
money in national bank. But when
William OF Orange came to take over
the throne at the end of the seven
tenth century Charles Montagu, a cele-
brated chancellor of the exchequer, got
q bill embodying the constitution of
national bank founded on the prin-
cipleS OF the Amsterdam Bank through
Parliament, and city merchant who
stood close to him, one Michael God
frey, raised a capital of $500, 900
among his business associates.
The condition on which King William
got this 81 $780, 00 was the grant to the
merchant group of a charter for bank
in which many people could hold a
share, but could be responsible only for
the amount of the share they held. So
the bank came into being, and the loan
to the King was secured by duties on
beer and ale, then, as now, about the
soundeSt and biggest revenue producer
in the island.
The old one-story building (now be-
ing replaced by a new building which
preserves the essential lines and char
acter of the old one) was attacked by
mob at the height of the Gordon
riots of the early eighteenth century.
The clerks manned the windows and
fired on the rioters, using bullets made
by melting the lead inkpots from the
desks. They laid out $50 of the at
tackers and the rest fed.
Comes to Rescue of U. s. Banks.
1t rushed to the rescue of certain of
the American banks in the crisis of
1887, and when three chief houses suS-
pended payment 1t lent the Americans
a further S30,000,000 to avert big fail
ures which would have had disastrous
results in England.
Crooks have tried to get at the bank,
and the shadows of the gallowS hung
darkly over the financial fortress for a
long period. The first man who tried
to forge one of its banknotes was exc
cuted in 1785. The forging fraternity
were not deferred. In the one year Of
1920, 80 forgers were hanged for at
temptS against the bank.
In the middle of last century came
George Bidwell, with his brother Aus
tin and another from the United States
to try to crack the crib in Thread
needle street. They had plan for re-
ducing the banks gold stocks by $5,000,-
900 by means of forged bonds
They had made quite pile when
one of the forgers slipped and was
detected. The gang scattered. De-
tectives grabbed George Bidwell as he
was posting letter in Edinburgh. Aus
tin was hard to find. He married a
girl in the great salon of the Ameri-
can embassy in Paris posing as a
young man of means. They honey
mooned in Spain and the West Indies
and finally set up house in one of
the pretty villas on the slopes above
Havana. They were happy and en-
tertained largely.
One night, in the midst of a gay
party, the door few open and a posse
burst in and seized the young man.
He was Austin. The bank had tracked
him half around the world. He got
life sentence.
The bank one way and another has
gathered so formidable reputation for
hanging on to its man and getting him
that nowadays criminals fight shy of
trying conclusions with the Old Lady of
Threadneedle street.
Institution Once Outwitted.
Only once in its long life has the
bank been outwitted It was In the
time OF George II, when it was the
practice of all banks to give a receipt
in payment for all deposits. the re-
ceipts being passed from hand to hand