A Bald Statement

At the Lord Mayor's banquet in London, at which Secretary Mellon of the United States Treasury was a guest, Premier Baldwin referred to the recent debt funding negotiations for the settlement of the British debt to the United States, and added:

" I am sure no one in this room will misunderstand me for a moment when I say that I believe that a great deal of the credit, if credit there was, that was due to the negotiators for the rapidity with which that great question was solved, arose from the fact that neither the Governor of the Bank of England, nor I, nor Mr. Mellon, had ever at any stage of our lives been members of the legal profession."

It is an inherent weakness with human kind to indulge in criticism of others while exalting self. For years men have criticized governments for being composed of homogeneous professional bodies. The lawyer invariably thinks that he can do better than the banker, and vice versa.

Mr. Baldwin's remarks were intended as a compliment to Secretary Mellon, and, incidentally, to himself. Said a prominent Kansan : " To the legal profession as a whole, and to a very long line of legal statesmen, some of whom are still living, the Prime Minister's words are, to say the least, a grave and unnecessary injustice."