Nobel & Nazis

A house guest of Morgan Partner Thomas W. Lamont in Manhattan last week was Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, 73, when cables flashed that he is to receive 158,000 Swedish kronor ($40,000), the Nobel Peace Prize for 1937.

Aristocrat Cecil during the War was British Minister of Blockade, became one of the drafters of the Covenant of the League of Nations. In 1924 he was the first winner of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation's $25,000 award for having striven for "world Peace through Justice."

In 1935 Lord Cecil, as president of the British League of Nations Union, fostered a straw vote in which 11,000,000 Britons balloted pro-League. This should have presaged a Labor victory at the next British General Election, since the Labor Opposition has always been pro-League and the Conservatives lukewarm or cold to Geneva. Instead Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin turned the straw votes into Conservative ballots by casting handsome young Anthony Eden spectacularly in the role of the League's Galahad, defender of Ethiopia, had the late King George V dissolve Parliament and order an election at exactly the psychological moment (TIME. Nov. 25, 1935, et ante). With the huge Conservative majority then won, Britain's present Conservative Cabinet is carrying on today under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who is colder to Geneva than even Mr. Baldwin was. Recently he dropped the League of Nations completely out of the annual Speech from the Throne (TIME, Nov. 8). Genial Lord Cecil spoke of his winning the Nobel Prize last week as "a feather in the cap of the League of Nations." Like many another British lord he has something of a weakness for the Nazis. "A plain, naked transfer of territory back to Germany would be difficult," said Nobel Prizeman Cecil last week. "I would favor the return of colonies [to Germany] being discussed."

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