3 SEPTEMBER 1937, Page 2

* * * * M. van Zeeland's Honour The danger

of a Cabinet crisis in Belgium, as a result of a disagreement between M. van Zeeland, the Prime Minister, and M. de Man, his Finance Minister, appears to have diminished ; but the causes of the disagreement have still to be cleared up. M. de Man had conducted an enquiry into recent allegations that M. van Zeeland had received payments from the National Bank after he had ceased to be its Vice-Governor and had become Prime Minister. M. de Man's report denied the allegations ; but M. van Zeeland later stated to the Press that, when he retired, he had received a sum of money out of a fund said to be the private property of the directors. This statement, as a " new fact " in the case, was held to make further enquiry necessary ; and M. de Man may have been pardonably annoyed if it was withheld from him while making his enquiry. It is more unfortunate, however, that the rumours, and the enquiry, have given an excellent opportunity to the Rexists to attack M. van Zeeland's probity at the very moment when his Cabinet is revising the Statutes under which the Bank is constituted. For this reason, the Government has been wise in invoking an extraordinary session of Parliament in which the affair will be publicly discussed and, it is to be hoped, completely clarified.

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