"Every Man His Duty"

Foremost European exponent of the need for economic cooperation between nations in order to avoid another World War is young, vigorous Leopold III, Statesman-King of the Belgians. Possessed of the conviction that he (since fate has made him a King) and Belgium (since she stands strategically between the European lineups) have the responsibility of bringing about a permanent peace based on economic readjustments before it is too late, Leopold loses no opportunity to put his ideas across.

Year ago, after Britain and France had commissioned the then Premier of Belgium, scholarly Paul van Zeeland, to make his now dust-gathering study of the economic obstacles to world trade, pleased King Leopold wrote his Premier, suggested an international economic institute.

Last week the young monarch was in Paris, there attended the dedication of a monument to his father, the late King Albert. Surprised were France's President Albert Lebrun, Premier Edouard Daladier and Leopold's sister, the Crown Princess of Italy, when the King brushed aside the conventional speech of thanks, launched into an impassioned plea for his ideas:

"To everyman his duty and to every country its mission. Standing as she does at the crossroads of Europe, the mission of Belgium is to work for peace and mediation....

"Let us raise ourselves above these envies and antagonisms....Is not the best way of winning peace...through the reciprocal confidence of nations and their active persevering collaboration?"

In what his startled French listeners observed as a most advanced remark for a King to make, Leopold concluded: "The glory, like the enjoyment of the good things in this world that in the past belonged too exclusively to a favored few, has become and will become more and more the reward of those who serve humanity."

After his speech all Paris buzzed with the possibility that if the Munich agreement of three weeks ago is to be followed up with an international conference, the initiative will probably come from Brussels rather than from Washington, whence it was first expected.

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