INTERNATIONAL: Educational Is the Word

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Frankly a grind, Paul van Zeeland's extracurricular activities were limited to taking long walks in the country and pitching pennies at a crack in the sidewalk, but no roistering senior in a beer suit was ever more loyal to Old Nassau. Punctually every year Paul van Zeeland sends cards to every instructor under whom he studied. In the autumn of 1934 when Paul van Zeeland and a Yale friend attended an important banking conference, the latter scribbled the just-arrived score of a football game on a card and slipped it to the former—Yale 7; Princeton 0. Back from van Zeeland came the re-joinder—"Belgian Cabinet: Princeton 2; Yale 0." Cabinet Minister of Transport Vicomte Charles de Bus de Warnaffe was once a Princeton graduate student too. Mr. van Zeeland's brother and his nephew both studied at Princeton. He has promised that as soon as his elder son graduates from Louvain he shall study at Princeton.

Banker into Politics. After Princeton, where he wrote his M. A. thesis on the U. S. Federal Reserve System, Paul van Zeeland practiced law briefly, soon went to the Banque Nationale de Belgique, where he rose rapidly to be secretary, director, vice governor. The switch from state banking, generally considered a government service, to active politics was painless. Paul van Zeeland was made Minister-without-Portfolio in the Cabinet of Count Charles de Broqueville in 1934, with the special job of deflating Belgium's dangerously inflated currency. Parliament would not accept many of the reforms he suggested. Paul van Zeeland resigned in November, pulling the Broqueville Cabinet down with him. In March 1935, Paul van Zeeland became Premier of Belgium.

Since then van Zeeland has been widely heralded as Belgium's New Dealer. His financial reforms have gone through, unemployment has dropped, impoverished agriculture is now prosperous, but sober Paul van Zeeland sees himself in a larger role: leader of a new group of European powers. Hence his desire to placate Belgium's noisy Flemish minorities, hence his embarking on a quiet campaign no other Belgian Premier has dared: to make friends with The Netherlands.

Because The Netherlands controls the mouth of the River Scheldt, Belgians and Netherlanders have frequently been at odds for centuries. Van Zeeland is acute enough to realize that the two little countries must work together for their own good. In this he has been loyally backed by his King. Young Leopold has hired a Dutch nurse for his motherless children, setting a fashion among Brussels' smart set. Netherlanders are great colonial administrators, lately have been welcomed as colonizers in developing the Belgian Congo.

For personal reasons also Paul van Zeeland is anxious to better relations with The Netherlands. Previous leader of the Oslo Group is elderly, conservative Hendrikus Colijn, Premier of The Netherlands. His was the idea of reviving the 1930 group. After much sly spadework it was on his invitation that members of the northern nations met quietly at The Hague on March 3. Premier Colijn has not the youth, the personality, perhaps even the ability of Paul van Zeeland. But he is an important figure. If Paul van Zeeland is quietly to replace him he is very anxious to keep on the best terms with him, and that so far van Zeeland has done.