Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1949-09-11
Canada Has
Firm Man at
DollarTalks
Finance Boss Abbott
Is Accompanied
by Diplomat
By Michael Borkwoy

OTTAWA.-Canada's financial
representative at the Washington
financial talks is the lively, spruce
Montreal lawyer, Douglas c. Alb
bolt. With him will be Lester b.
Pearson, the career civil servant
who went straight into the Cana
dian cabinet last year as Secre-
tary of State for External Affairs.
from the post as Permanent
Undersecretary."
The two men are almost con-
temporaries: they are both within
a year or two of so. Mr.. Pearson
has by far the greater experience
of international meetings and has
a natural gift for diplomacy. but
the bent of his mind is not to-
ward financial or economic affairs.
He tackles them as he would
tackle any other problem in di-
plomacy. Mr.. Abbott, who has
concentrated the mind of a sue
cessful commercial lawyer on the
lob of financial minister, has def
mite and we'll ordered views on
the complex subjects to be dis
cussed. He is a very hard worker
and a conscientious minister. His
difficulty is not intellectual grasp
but communication.
Hard to Bulge
In the House of Commons here
Mr.. Abbott is an attractive figure,
ouick-witted and obviously mas
ter of his subject, but he arouses
some irritation and criticism be-
cause-his critics say-he will not
take them seriously. He has a
habit of brushing off" not only
the silly questions, but also the
sensible ones which deserve to be
taken seriously. The same tech
nique to press conferences can give
the impression that he is smart
Alec" This impression does him
much less than justice. But the
question why he does 1t is still
open.
It might be that he cant be
bothered" to get into an argument,
yet he is anything but lazy man.
It might be that he instinctively
tries to avoid unpleasantness. yet
he does not lack courage. If he Is
convinced of the necessity of I'M
popular measures he will take
them, give his explanation or de-
Tense of them and leave it at that.
He is always most reluctant to
follow through with lengthy argu-
ments.
In international negotiations he
is not, for these reasons, a particu-
larry easy man. He is always
pleasant and easy to get along
with, but the other party may be
baffled to know just where the
argument has ended. If Mr.. Alb
bolt states thesis x and Sir Stat
ford Grips replies with thesis Y.
Mr.. Abbott is more likely than not
to leave it at that. And 1T may
be disturbing later to find that he
still holds to his original thesis
as firmly as ever.
Shocked Some People
In the Washington talks Mr..
Abbott certainly has thesis X
from which he will not easily be
shaken. 1t is, fundamentally. that
the first essential moves to solve
the sterling crisis lie with Britain.
He put this view in blunt and
rather unhappy terms as soon as
he got back from the July talks
in London. He said-and shocked
some people here as well as in
Britain-that this was "Britain's
crisis" He said it to a press con-
ference here much more bluntly
than he had said it to the British
ministers in London and it sounded
like an expression of disinterested-
ness in the whole affair.
Considering the way he works
and the way he conducts parlia-
mentary debates. this was probably
not what he meant to imply. A
fuller Interpretation, if one may
include other evidence in the judy
ment; would be: I'm this inter-
national chess game. the next
move is Britain's and 1t is not my
business to decide what they
should do. My turn comes after
they have moved"
Mr.. Abbott is at his best when
he is minding his own business.
He minds 1t very well. He is
neither very interested in nor very
good at the tricky problem of
influencing other peoples bust
ness. But Mr.. Pearson has spent
most of a lifetime at the latter
job, technically known as diplo-
macy. They should be a good
team.
(Copyright. London Observer Foreign News
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