Indispensable Knight

One afternoon last week a tall man in a black coat and wing collar stood before the House of Commons. The rumble of Winston Churchill's oratory had faded. Members had drifted out until the semicircular chamber was less than half full. The tall man's large, coldly impressive face moved hardly a muscle, his hands rarely stirred as he informed the House, in tones as dry as a corncob, of a complex plan to stabilize world currencies.

This week, in the same setting and in the same tones, the same man read the Treasury's annual, dust-dry budget message. He coldly, competently answered the questions of the House, as coldly departed when the job was done. The Members expected no more, and no less, of Sir John Anderson, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Britain's No. 1 example of that peculiarly British institution, the civil servant.

Iron Man. Sir John has filled many a tough job, has been violently criticized. If he made mistakes, he definitely never apologized for one. As Secretary of the Ministry of Shipping, he fought the U-boat menace in World War I and was knighted. As Joint Undersecretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1921, he rode hard on the rebellious Irish. He laid an iron hand on Ernest Bevin's general strike of 1926, and broke it. He governed India's restive province of Bengal for five years, came to be known as the most-shot-at man in the world, and freed one of his would-be assassins so that the man could continue his education in England. He was, and is, an independent the Conservatives would be proud to call their own.

In 1941, just before his second marriage. Lady-Anderson-to-be demanded: "You don't know anything about art, you don't read poetry, you don't care for music; what are you interested in?" Said he: "Currency." He was then Lord President of the Council, No. 2 man in Winston Churchill's War Cabinet, and had put his clammy, pneumonia-breeding Anderson bomb shelters into nearly every Briton's backyard. He moved to the Exchequer after Sir Kingsley Wood died in 1943.

At that time he might have gone back to turbulent, troublesome India as Viceroy. Sage old Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts, Prime Minister of South Africa, scotched that idea after Britain's Cabinet had all but agreed on the appointment. Said he: "You can't do without him here."

Iron Lover. Between the Sir John known to the British public, and the one known to his attractive, blonde, considerably younger wife, there is a vast difference. To her he is notably attentive. She is always present when he addresses the House of Commons. On their small Sussex estate he putters in the garden, takes soil samples from various spots to be analyzed, constantly plans the big landscaping job he will do when peace eases the tight labor market.

Flowers he affectionately calls by their Latin names. He picks bunches of daisies, forget-me-nots, anemones for Lady Anderson's small town house. He takes an enchanted interest in the garden, the one cow, two geese, half-dozen ducks they own. Says Lady Anderson: "He loves that cow."

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