Outburst

The sober-sided City men of the British Bankers Association were treated one night last week to an outburst of joy from the most formidable Tory of them all--the chill Chancellor of His Majesty's Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain. The man who has given Britain budget surpluses for two years past rose in his place, took off his eyeglasses, looked paternally about him and all but chortled, "We meet in an atmosphere of such happiness and contentment as has not been seen since the War." He proceeded to document the atmosphere with an impressive set of figures.

Britain's domestic trade was reviving.

Building production was up, bank savings were up, insurance premiums were up. The inference was plain that all this was the work of His Majesty's National Government which has taken the pound off gold and raised British tariffs. "I see no reason," said he, "to abandon Government's policies of moderate tariffs and cheap money." The next step in Britain's ascent out of Depression, he said, was a resumption of international lending, and even there a beginning had been made. So expansive was the Chancellor's speech that one correspondent ascribed it to a fine dinner he had just finished at the Hall of the Grocers' Company.

Smoothly in his stride, Chamberlain cheerfully shunted the suggestion of world stabilization of currencies made last week by U. S. Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau (TIME, May 20): "Just as it is no use to try to anchor a ship if the anchorage is always shifting, so it seems to me it would be futile to attempt to bring about stabilization in that way until we can see some prospect of stability of conditions after that stabilization has been effected. All I can say, therefore, is that stabilization is one of our ultimate objectives. We are now watching, and shall continue to watch, the situation with a view to taking action at any time that it seems to us the action is likely to bring about useful results."

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