New Face for Old Lady

The final accolade came to Britain's No. 1 economist, John Maynard Keynes, last week. Bank of England shareholders elected him a director, to succeed the late Lord Stamp. Orthodox oldtimer Montagu Norman, the Bank's Governor, thus played a sly old English trick: he swallowed his opposition. Monty, just turned 70, also waived in his own favor the Bank's unwritten rule requiring directors to retire at 70, remained in office.

To wartime London it looked as if Monty had swallowed too much for his ancient stomach. For ex-Cassandra Keynes, personal braintruster to ex-Cassandra Winston Churchill, has already seen his ex-radical fiscal ideas (notably compulsory savings) become an integral part of British national policy.

In his Cassandra days, Mr. Keynes called the gold standard a "barbarous relic"; Mr. Norman, in his heyday, said "I am the gold standard!"

Though Londoners foresaw fireworks in this juxtaposition of black and white, they were pretty sure that the post-war face of the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street would bear more resemblance to Keynes than to Norman.

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