1,000 Delegates

Forty-six governments, including three nonLeague member states,* sent a total of slightly over 1,000 delegates, last week, to the International Economic Conference, sponsored at Geneva by the League of Nations. Scarcely a politician was present. Big businessmen headed the various delegations of practicing economic experts. To provide a banquet of facts for digestion by the 1,000 economists, staff officials of the League had ready 500.000 words of special reports.

Colossal. . .

Purpose. The Council of the League of Nations explicitly postulated that "the Conference is not . . . composed of responsible delegates invested with full powers for the conclusion of conventions" but is rather "a general consultation, in the course of which various programs and doctrines may be freely exposed without the freedom of discussion being restricted by any immediate necessity to transform the conclusions of the conference into international engagements."

Briefly the Conference is an international pool of men, facts, ideas, in which each delegate must fish for himself.

Star Delegations, The 1,000 delegates felt keenest interest last week in two delegations, composed (as to important delegates) respectively of 6 U. S. representatives and 16 Soviet Russians. Never before has the U. S. sent a "delegation" (as distinguished from mere "observers") to a conference called by the League; and not since the Lausanne Conference of 1923, when a Soviet envoy was murdered on Swiss soil, has "Red Russia" sent delegates of any kind into Switzerland.

The U. S. and Russia, it seemed last week, were edging cautiously nearer the League. . . .

Robinson & Colleagues. Heading the U. S. delegates as they climbed down from wagon-lits at Geneva last week, was a smart son of Ravenna, Ohio, Henry Mauris Robinson, 58, whose stocky form and pleasant features are best known in Los Angeles, Calif., where he is President of the First National Bank. Europeans know Mr. Robinson, however, as a subordinate member under Charles Gates Dawes of the Dawes Committee (1924) which evolved the Dawes plan.

Other U. S. delegates: 1) Norman H. Davis, 48, Manhattanite, onetime (1919-20) Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and (1920-21) Under Secretary of State; 2) John William O'Leary, 51, President of the Chamber of Commerce of the U. S.; 3) Dr. Alonzo Englebert Taylor, 56, Director of the Food Research Institute of Stanford University; 4) Dr. Julius Klein, 40, Director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of the U. S. Department of Commerce.

Klein. Though modest Dr. Julius Klein opened his lips to correspondents not so much as once last week, he was sought out, courted by Europeans who know in what esteem President Calvin Coolidge holds silent but upstanding Dr. Klein. The President has said (TIME, April 11) that Julius Klein is the best informed man in the Government Service on the Administration's economic policy. Such words are a talisman to fame. When Dr. Klein reached Geneva, it was whispered that his are the ears of President Coolidge at the Economic Conference. . . .

A silent man, gentle and mild-mannered from choice, Dr. Klein is able to unleash at will a dynamic personality. His propulsive will drove him to a study of Spanish and Latin-American economic problems (1912-14) ; and the World War found him an instructor of Latin-American history and economics at Harvard. Entering the Government Service amid days of emergency, he was later sent to Buenos Aires; and from there he originated the present system of monthly cable letters on economic conditions which now pour into Washington from U. S. Consuls everywhere.

No one told Dr. Klein to cable his reports, but other consuls found he was gaining prestige thereby, and began to cable, too, reports which they had been accustomed to send in haphazard, and often a season or two late. . . . To close the chapter, Dr. Klein was promoted in 1921 to his present post: Director of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. There over 300 reports reach him daily; and out to U. S. businessmen go a daily average of 3,000 replies to economic questions. Says Dr. Klein: "We have a rule that a reply--not necessarily complete--must go to every inquirer within 48 hours of the time his question reaches us. . . . The most perishable commodity on earth is commercial intelligence. . . . The concealment of facts is dangerous. If the truth is shocking, the more reason why we should have the truth."

From Dr. Klein, thought observers, President Coolidge will receive hot truths about the Economic Conference.

Prince & Comrades. Heading the Soviet delegation, carrying his own fibre suitcase, came, last week Prince Valerian Obolenski Ossinski. . .

His once aristocratic Tsarol days of sport and opulence are gone. He is trusted of Bolsheviks, and at Moscow heads the Soviet Statistical Department. His attendant stenographers and private secretary were seen, last week, to be ladies of stern, middle age, their skirts at pre-War length, their manners suggesting not at all the imaginary "free-love" conditions pretended to exist in Russia. Second in authority was Comrade Eugen Varga, a Hungarian, one-time chief adviser to the ousted Soviet dictator of Hungary, fat, spiderlike Bela Kun (dictator 1919).

Proceedings. Onetime (1921-1925), Premier Georges Theunis of Belgium opened the Conference, as Chairman last week with innocuous words: "Economic dislocation of Europe . . . feverish mentality produced by the War . . . this Conference must show the way to a future bright with hope. . . ."

Since all major business of the Conference will be transacted in innumerable sub-committee rooms, the huge public session of last week wore on amid intentionally bromidic set speeches. Even so, U. S. Chief Delegate Henry M. Robinson managed to fall afoul of bland Sir Max Muspratt, President of the British Delegation, and, in business life, president of the immensely potent and monopolistic Federation of British Industries. Naturally, rubber was the elastic bone of the Robinson-Muspratt contention, for the British rubber monopoly (TIME, Jan. 18, 1926) has forced U. S. citizens to pay dear for tires, hot-water bottles, teething rings

Sir Max began the exchange of shots by observing in his set speech that "with very rare exceptions there is no British discrimination against the rest of the world in the export of raw materials, and the much criticized rubber restrictions have no element of discrimination in favor of Great Britain, but were introduced to ensure continuity of supply of a product essential to modern civilization."

Countered Mr. Robinson, when his turn came to speak: "I cannot clearly see how a restriction in output could assure a continuity of supply at a high level and prove of ultimate benefit to the world. I am also wondering whether the fact that over 75% of the commodity is consumed-in a nonproducing country [the U. S.], while the country controlling restriction [Great Britain] consumes but 7% of the total supply, might be looked upon as discrimination."

That the shot took effect was seen when British Delegate Sir Walter Runciman, genial shipping magnate, remarked candidly: "It looks like friend Muspratt got it right on the bean."

So successfully dull and amicable was the remainder of the public session, that the Conference was able to adjourn into committees, late in the week, without perceptible discord.

Prince Valerian Ossinski provided the only (mild) sensation of the week when he protested to the League that the Swiss police were guarding him against assassination so effectively that he was virtually a prisoner in his own hotel. Soon League officials persuaded the Swiss to desist. Prince Ossinski later spoke before the Conference, urging all nations to cancel their War debts, lower immigration barriers, and join with Soviet Russia in a program of universal disarmament. He spoke effectively, and some dozens of delegates crowded down near the rostrum, applauded.

Underground Motif. Among potent U. S. import-export houses information circulated last week, that the German delegation at Geneva has been instructed to sound out the U. S. delegation upon the possibility of an understanding between the U. S. Administration and the German chemical and other trusts. Prospectively the question will be asked whether lower U. S. tariffs can possibly be obtained on certain German goods, in return for favors of an equal value to U. S. businessmen from the German trusts.

*The U. S., Russia, Turkey.