Something for the Baron

Banker Baron Edouard de Rothschild, 77, was grateful but hardly impressed. At Ottawa last week the Court of Exchequer decided in his favor an international rowdedow involving a mere $22,000.

Baron de Rothschild once possessed one of the five great fortunes of France. In 1935 his personal holdings alone were estimated at $55,000,000, and the assets of the Rothschild bank in France were said to be $600,000,000. In 1940, the Vichy government confiscated the Rothschild properties in France (after the Baron had emplaned with his family for the U.S., where he has since made his home). But the Baron probably scarcely felt the pinch. He had so much left that the $1,000,000 worth of jewels he had brought with him in a satchel were referred to as a "bagatelle."

The court action in Ottawa involved Rothschild-owned shares of the Royal Dutch Co. (oil). Worth 1,534,000 Dutch florins, they had been deposited in a Montreal bank in 1939 for safekeeping. But when the Baron reached the U.S. and asked for his florins, he found they had been impounded by Canada's Custodian of Enemy Property. The Baron could have his money, said the custodian, only if he would pay a $21,844.16 handling charge. The Baron appealed. He claimed that he had never been an enemy of Canada, that therefore Canada had no right to take custody of his property, that he should not have to pay a fee. In court last week, Justice Joseph T. Thorson agreed with him.

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