Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-02

IN HILIP SNOWDEN, whom France
l. was the first to christen Eng
lands Iron Chancellor" they
l. called him other names, too, at
that Hague PREPARATIONS confer
ence), is brewing Labor's budget, and
the financiers, business men, colonies,
die-hards and patriots who toasted him
when he held Europe up for another
e., 100000 of PREPARATIONS, and got it,
are wondering what he is going to pre-
sent in Parliament shortly bowl OF
mothers milk or a caldron Of devils
broth. For this is man OF surprises
and riddles.
Very busy he has been, holding the
treasury fort against spending min
listers since he got back from The
Hague, fatigued with victory and COW
cred with glory. He has managed to
keep new expenditures down to around
500, 900, 000-on top of estimated ex-
penditure under all heads of around
$4,000, 000, 000-but it has been tough
job and he Is not through yet.
His big, unlimited loan of october,
1929, dimmed his Hague renown more
than trtfle. For one thing, 1t has
anchored British credit at per cent
for the next is years and some think
British credit should be on Az per
cent basis. For another thing, it de-
preciated existing government bonds.
War IS had been above par and all
government bonds were standing trifie
better than the per cent basis. And
then, to make sure that he got some
thing anyway, the chancellor placed
$3.50 ,000,0 900 Of his loan privately with
the big banks and insurance houses at
99E2, which the stock market COM
planned was favoring the money inter-
est at the expense of the public, which
had to pay 500 for the $3.50, 600, 900
worth Of stock it took up. A Social
list chancellor handing a premium to
the money kings at the expense Of the
small investor!
Now Rated as Financier.
But Philip Snowden, the one-time
doctrinaire Socialist, is a bit of a prac-
tical financier these days. And as for
what people may say about him, whether
they be bankers or brokers or rebels or
the Labor Left, he does not care a darn
simply, when he has made UP his
mind and set that lean and rocky chin,
he does not care darn.
They discovered that at The Hague
when the reparations row was on. Aris-
tide BRAND, the soother, the charmer,
thought to dislodge him from his posi-
ton by the arts of suasion and Ca
jolery. He broke upon Snowden as a
suave wave which breaks upon rock;
the wave receded, the rock remained.
None of the delegates could understand
him. He was outside their experience
this strange man with his fixed blue,
sunken eye and large, protruding ears
fianking q white gnome's face.
M. Cheron, plump. soft heshed, pro-
turberant in the waistline but agile In
the mind, finance minister Of France,
watched this grim and menacing phe-
nomenon in horn-rimmed spectacles for
days and then suddenly said to BRAND:
81 have thought for days that I have
seen that man before and now know
where have seen him before. Behold
the face! That is the man who burned
Joan of Arc"
M Cheron was not far wrong. Snow
den, clenched, crippled, cold, clear
headed. industrious, incorruptible, in
domitable, insular and dry Tin the al
coholic sense) is the pungent national
ist ingredient In the British Labor
Socialist cocktail-in which heady and
potent draught the Welsh Jim Thomas
Is the iinperialist davoring and the
Scottish Ramsay Macdonald the emo
ticnal internat aonalist basis.