International Bankers

Chiefs of the national banks of England, France and Germany debarked at Manhattan last week for their regular summer conference and discussion of world economics with their good friend, Benjamin Strong, Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. All had been in the U. S. before, but severally. All had met before, but in Europe, where heretofore Governor Strong has spent his summers visiting with them. These comrades in finance, these truly international bankers, were:

Charles Rist, Deputy Governor of the Banque de France (Emile Moreau is Governor), a close-mouthed man, who was of the four least known to U. S. newsgatherers. Few realized that he had been professor of law in the Faculte de Droit de Paris; that he was an intimate of Premier Raymond Poincare of France; that he was an intimate of onetime (1917 & 1925) French Premiers Paul Painleve and (1924-25 & 1926) Edouard Herriot, with whom in 1921 he helped organize the now moribund Ligue de la Republique to fight Alexandra Millerand's Bloc National and establish a policy of democratic post-War reconstruction. M. Rist has been Deputy Governor of the Banque de France for only the past year. He is one of Europe's most profound economists.

Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, President of the German Reichsbank, with a mind as clear-thinking as a calculating machine, is one of the constructive geniuses of post-War Germany. Born in 1877 he was a partner in the Darmstadter-und-National bank until 1923, worked with the Reich Currency Commission that set up the present gold mark standard in Germany, cooperated with the (Charles Gates) Dawes Committee on German reparations. He has been president of the Reichsbank since 1924. He is a stern man to deal with, imperturbable and ruthless in carrying out a fiscal program. Only seven weeks ago, when German speculators were running wild, he passed put instructions that loans to Berlin stock market operators be instantly reduced by onefourth. There was panic on the Berlin Bourse (TIME, May-23).

Montagu Collet Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, is most picturesque of the four. Reared in that fin-de-siecle British atmosphere that supplied Margot, Viscountess Oxford & Asquith with long, pendent earrings, Oscar O'Flahertie Wills Wilde with a sunflower boutonniere and Winston S. Churchill with a paunch, Montagu Collet Norman affects a soft felt hat, bow necktie and a superbly pugnacious goatee. Like his contemporaneous compatriots his wit is keen, his thinking sharp, his knowledge authoritative. Born in 1871, he has been Governor of the Bank of England since 1920.

Benjamin Strong, Governor of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, is farther from the U. S. Government than his three banker visitors are from their governments. Their banks are the fiscal agents for England, France and Germany. In the U. S. the Treasury Department is the Government's money agent. In many cases and for many reasons it delegates its authority as agent to Federal Reserve banks, but those Federal Reserve banks are secondary, as it were, sub-agents of the Government. None the less Governor Strong as head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank wields financial authority fully comparable to that swung by the Messrs. Norman, Rist and Schacht, for it is to Manhattan banks that foreign banks turn for credit, and over Manhattan banks hovers Governor Strong's influence. Governor

Strong, born in 1872, has been in his office since 1914, when the Federal Reserve System was instituted. He is a sick man, and it was for that reason that his visitors came to him in a body, so that he would not be obliged to exert his little strength to go to them, as had been his past habit.

The matters that these four international bankers will discuss were, of course, unknown to newsgatherers last week. Because the four are exceedingly busy men the presumption was that they had a fixed program for discussion. That was not necessarily the case. They are, as heads of most potent banks, interested in the current situation of world business and finance. Knowing the routes of commerce is of no less importance to them than is the neighborhood route to the morning's milkman. And the best way to learn, they have wisely decided, is viva voce, by friendly conversations.