State Visit

In the snug, prosperous, heavily industrial Kingdom of the Belgians and its rich jungle Congo empire, even the worst Cabinet crisis is almost never cause for alarm. Reason: the extraordinary prestige and stabilizing ability of the Throne. Its power is a legacy from that masterly European schemer Leopold II, who died in 1909, and from his heroic successor, Belgium's Wartime King Albert. Fortunately, the throne next came to young King Leopold III, today easily the outstanding European crowned head in strength of mind and leadership. Last week His Majesty, having presided for some days over the vain efforts of Belgian politicians to find a successor for able, honest but scandal- seared Premier Paul van Zeeland, who recently resigned (TIME, Nov.1), calmly announced that Dr. van Zeeland will continue in office as Premier while King Leopold this week makes a visit of state in London to King George.

It happens that Belgium has a howling would-be-Hitler in the sleek person of Rexist Leader Leon Degrelle, who has been raking every kind of muck for months against Economist van Zeeland and finally made some of it stick (TIME, Sept. 13 et ante). But Belgians did not think this week that their King was taking a risk in stepping out of his country and away from his Government at such a crucial time. They felt that the Government was not so much being left behind as it was going abroad in the person of the King. Reason: The last time Leopold III went to London, His Majesty negotiated with the British Foreign Office and brought back to Brussels a treaty giving Belgium an altogether different status in Europe*(TIME, April 5 et seq.). This act of state by the King eclipsed in importance anything his Cabinet or Premier have yet done and was fully approved afterward by the Belgian Parliament, press and public. Thus King George is to be honored in Buckingham Palace this week by a state visit from a constitutional sovereign whose powers are real.

George VI as a young man witnessed the triumphant re-entry into Brussels-- after it had been evacuated by the Germans--of Belgium's King Albert and Crown Prince Leopold, who is now King. In 1935 Britain's present King George and Queen Elizabeth, then Duke & Duchess of York, gave a ball in the British Pavilion at the Brussels Exposition--the last public function at which young King Leopold Ill's dearly beloved and beauteous Queen Astrid ever appeared. After her tragic death in a motoring accident in Switzerland (TIME, Sept. 9, 1935), the Duke of York returned to Brussels to represent his father, George V, at the funeral. Today, in so far as two crowned heads can be on natural and simple human terms, the British King and the King of the Belgians are fast friends.

Quinine & Free Trade. Although Kaiser Wilhelm II made a great show of himself as The All-Highest War Lord, historians generally consider Albert of the Belgians the only King who during the War actually directed his armies on the Western Front. To Marshal Joffre years afterward, His Majesty confessed that the expert jargon of strategists and tacticians. had sometimes proved trying. "I listened to the generals and it seemed to me a great responsibility to decide between their different plans," said King Albert, "so I would just pick out the one that I thought made the most sense." Aged only 13, Crown Prince Leopold was permitted to enlist in the Belgian Army as a private, and before the War was over had fought in the trenches under fire. His redoubtable father, when a treacherous chauffeur attempted to kidnap King Albert to the German lines, drew his royal pistol and executed the miscreant.

After the War, touring the U. S. with his parents, Crown Prince Leopold greatly surprised correspondents on the royal special train by his democratic willingness to play poker, surprised them still further by quietly trimming them most of the time, always refused to say who taught him the game--a suspect being General Pershing.

Dowagers and daughters found that the 17-year-old Crown Prince would answer any question addressed to him, and that was all. Not until he was several years older did he wake up and start courting in his own way Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid.* Completely eluding news gossips who kept marrying him off to other princesses, Leopold would set out from Brussels traveling third class and carrying a small satchel as if going only for a short trip, would arrive at a country station in southeastern Sweden to be met by nobody and walk off with his satchel up to the rambling country house of his prospective Swedish father-in-law. In the nine years of Astrid's married life she gave Belgium three royal children: Princess Josephine Charlotte, now 10; Crown Prince Baudouin, 7; and Prince Albert, 3. Significant of the deep bond known to unite Astrid and Leopold was the insistence of the palace chamberlain on talking to her the night he telephoned to a resort hotel in Switzerland the terrible news that King Albert had been killed by a fall while mountaineering in one of the few rocky districts of low-lying Belgium. Leopold had answered the telephone, put Astrid on at the chamberlain's request, and afterward she broke the news that stark tragedy had made him King.

How thoroughly was Leopold III prepared to mount the throne, he had shown as Crown Prince, partly by serving as an active member of the Belgian Senate and partly by preparing for his father a series of comparative reports on colonial administration in the Belgian Congo, British India, The Netherlands Indies, the Philippines and French Indo-China. It was not simply that Leopold and Astrid "inspected" or showed "interest" on their travels. The Crown Prince everywhere took copious notes of the replies made to his questions, collected and studied reports as he went along, and on returning to Brussels closeted himself for weeks, writing up his own reports to King Albert and preparing his speeches to the Senate. As an instance, His Royal Highness drew the Senate's attention at length to the conditions and prices under which the vital tropical drug quinine was available in the Congo, his recommendations leading to the State's supplying quinine free to the indigent and securing reduced prices for natives whose purchasing power by European standards is low.

Van Zeeland v. Degrelle. Considering the importance of economic forces in the modern world, Belgium's late King Albert gave and King Leopold has given much consideration to whether a modern State should not be managed by an expert or experts, rather than run by a politician or politicians.

In Belgium, the rival Catholic and the Socialist parties and their satellites had jockeyed each other for power to such a comparative standstill that in 1935 it actually became possible for the kingdom to have in Paul van Zeeland a Premier who had never actively belonged to any party, never had stood for election to any office and was primarily a professor of economics and an expert in central banking (TIME, April 8, 1935). Professor van Zeeland was brought in as a compromise coalition Premier chiefly because King Albert had repeatedly brought him in as an economic counselor whose services previous Belgian Cabinets had found effective, disinterested. Under his expert management as Premier the devaluation of the belga--made inevitable by the devaluation of the currencies of the Great Powers --was carried through with skill and success in sharp contrast to the awful bungling at Paris of the devaluation of the franc (TIME, Oct. 5, 1936, et seq.).

Premier van Zeeland adopted and succeeded in maintaining a policy of keeping internal Belgian prices near to where they were when the belga was devalued, thus cutting by 28% the external prices at which Belgian industry was able to offer its products and stimulating trade which sharply reduced Belgian unemployment. In France the immediate rise of internal prices, as soon as the franc was devalued, left French industry to stagnate, unable to meet competitive prices abroad. And such reduction of employment as France obtained by legislating shorter hours made her trade position still worse, since it increased French production costs, upping both internal and external prices. This year, at the time of Premier van Zeeland's visit to President Roosevelt (TIME, July 5), most commentators agreed that Belgian economy, having in the main been managed understandingly by an economist rather than run by politicians (there were, of course, Belgian leaders of both the Catholic and Socialist parties in the van Zeeland Cabinet) had made just about the best recovery showing in Europe. This, however, did not save van Zeeland.

Belgium's loose Nazi movement, the Rexists, began as avowedly Catholic-- their Rex being the Savior Christus Rex. Handsome as a cinema hero and leather-lunged, Rexist Leader Leon Degrelle daringly insinuated that King Leopold was behind him until His Majesty discreetly punctured such rumors. Degrelle also openly claimed the Catholic Church was behind him, was disavowed by a letter from the Archbishop of Malines. When Degrelle forced a by-election last spring this challenge was accepted by Premier van Zeeland who ran as a simple candidate for the Chamber of Deputies against Rexist Degrelle and beat him.

The Rexist retort to this was to commence ferreting through every organization with which Professor van Zeeland had ever been connected and in the National Bank of Belgium of which he had been vice governor they found something. The statutes of the bank had been so drawn, long before van Zeeland's time, that its officials participated in a pool of earnings so arranged that to an ordinary Belgian eye it is clear enough that at least some of the money which went to officials and former officials, including van Zeeland, should instead have gone into the public treasury. The Chamber by a vote of 130-to-34 vindicated Premier van Zeeland while demanding that the statutes of the bank be revised (TIME, Sept. 20). However, in the State investigation now proceeding van Zeeland will have to appear, like other former officials of the National Bank, before a magistrate to be examined "like a criminal!" (according to the Rexists' jubilating press). Professor van Zeeland, feeling that the Premier of Belgium, although already vindicated, could not maintain the dignity of that great office while being examined in court, handed his resignation to King Leopold.

His Majesty, now that politicians of all leading parties have informed him in the past few days that they have been unable to form a Cabinet which can secure a majority in Parliament, last week amply showed his own feelings by asking van Zeeland to remain as Premier at least until the King returns from London. By then Belgian public opinion may have a clearer grasp of the issues--already this week prominent Socialists were agitating for van Zeeland to be formally reinstated as Premier--and the King may also call a general election. Although Rexist Degrelle is no doubt annoyed at his fascist failure to use the King, the handsome Rexist's loose mind and looser tongue have produced this extraordinary aphorism: "Is Rex loyal to the King? Certainly! We are even more loyal to His Majesty than he is to us."

Another 1914? Adolf Hitler may be no more dependable than was Wilhelm II in respecting the new German pledge not to invade Belgium and even defend her against aggression, but King Leopold and his generals like to draw attention to such facts as that in 1914 the peacetime armies of Belgium and Germany were respectively 42,000 and 870,000, whereas in case of war next year the figures would be 84,000 and 550,000 at best estimates. Brussels, however, does not consider that Germany will next fight westward toward Belgium and France, but instead eastward if at all, and His Majesty is known to anticipate no such war for at least another two years. The new Belgian foreign policy keynotes "Independence!" and by this the Government and King mean, and have given Belgium's solemn assurance, that Belgian forces will at once engage and fight any forces which attempt to pass over Belgium by air or by land to attack a country beyond. Moreover, Brussels will instantly warn London, Paris or Berlin if an air armada is heard approaching, and today the British public gratefully regard Belgium as their "listening post."

"Not Words But Proofs!" No facile optimist, the King is known at court to feel that continuance of Europe's piling up of armaments at the present rate can only lead at last to a major war. The alternative, as His Majesty sees it, is for statesmen to learn something about economics and apply what they learn toward easing the world's stresses & strains, instead of holding endless conferences in terms of politics & prestige. King Leopold last summer made a public appeal for action along these lines so trenchant that the London Laborite Daily Herald said it "may alter world history." and the London Conservative Morning Post declared: "The very least that countries to which the appeal was directed can do is to give the proposal their urgent and sympathetic consideration." The proposal of His Majesty (TIME, Aug. 2):

"Give humanity, especially the Far Eastern countries, not words, but proofs that the Western countries have, above their more immediate problems of material nature, a spiritual force emanating from the spirit of brotherhood. . . . Neither lowering of customs barriers, nor any other partial measure would put an end to the disorders which threaten peace. If we are really to avoid war and bring back humanity to more peaceful sentiments, we must have the courage to face economic questions in their broadest aspect and find a solution for such great problems threatening peace as these:

1) the distribution of raw materials; 2) apportionment of the elements of monetary exchange; 3) distribution of employment; 4) establishing an equilibrium between agricultural and industrial nations. . . ."

"Waterlily" and "Horace/' Thus far the British have given Belgium's Leopold only words of praise in their press, not proofs in the acts of their Government that they approve His Majesty's project for a realistic international grappling with the problems which breed war. This week his state visit to London can be, depending on the British Cabinet, either more or less just another Old World pageant.

At Buckingham Palace last week the news was given out that King George and the Duke of Gloucester will meet King Leopold at Victoria Station and that the names of the six Windsor greys which will draw the 7,000-lb. state landau are "Lorenzo," "Lilian," "Arum," "Angela," "Shale-Fox" and "Waterlily."

Next day the lead bays of the royal landau will be "Wolsely" and "Horace."

On arrival at Buckingham Palace, where King Leopold will occupy what is known at all times as "The Belgian Suite," he will have tea with King George and Queen Elizabeth, and their two little daughters will be brought in to drop curtsies. At 8:30 p. m. arrive 400 guests to eat the state banquet with Their Majesties.

Next morning King George is not to be present when King Leopold receives the diplomatic corps at Buckingham Palace. At high noon the King of the Belgians goes to lunch with the Lord Mayor of London and its biggest wigs at the Guildhall. In the afternoon Leopold III starts his conferences with British statesmen and at the Belgian Embassy that evening His Majesty is host to King George and Queen Elizabeth and 40 ultra-select guests, nearly all men, but slated to include Mrs. Neville Chamberlain and Mrs. Anthony Eden. After dinner Their Majesties drive to Buckingham Palace for the state ball of 1,200, with music by the Royal Artillery Band which swank Londoners (even courtiers) call "lousy."

Since King Leopold is the Honorary Colonel-in-Chief of the British Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, His Majesty goes next day to visit them at Colchester, later inspecting at London the Belgian-financed Leather Cloth Co. and the fine clinic of the Finbury Dispensary, a British charity notable for its Belgian support. Finally this week, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden is to stand at the foot of the Foreign Office stairs, welcoming Kings George & Leopold and 80 guests to a Foreign Office dinner "in the name of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland"--after which Leopold III returns to Brussels.

Congo & Security. A visit of state is ipso facto not a business visit, but Leopold III is expected to busy himself finding out what the British Government mean by a startling decision they took last week. This was to send to visit Adolf Hitler this week the notably pro-German Viscount Halifax, whose Cabinet post is Lord President of the Council. With all Europe assuming that Halifax & Hitler will talk over Germany's demands for colonial territory; her aspirations in Austria and Czechoslovakia; and her intentions toward Soviet Russia, now that Germany, Italy and Japan have made an anti-Communist pact (TIME, Nov. 15), King Leopold must discuss these vital matters with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. His Majesty must seek British assurances that Germany will get none of the Belgian Congo in any case. Especially if there is danger of war in Eastern Europe in the next few years, Leopold III and Mr. Chamberlain have every incentive to try to get signed at last the often proposed Security Pact to assure Peace in the West (TIME, March11), with presumptive signers including Britain. Germany, France and Belgium.

*So long as Germany remained disarmed by the Treaty of Versailles, it was to Belgium's advantage to remain allied with Britain and France. King Leopold III, seeing that Hitler's rearmament of Germany in violation of Versailles had created a new situation, secured from Britain and France a release from Belgium's obligation to aid them, while they agreed to remain bound to aid Belgium in case she is attacked. This coup by King Leopold in person, his Minister in Berlin followed up by quietly obtaining from Hitler a pledge that Germany, too, will defend Belgium in case of unprovoked aggression ("TIME, Oct. 25).

*Niece of the King of Sweden, sister-in-law of the Crown Prince of Norway, niece of the King of Denmark.

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