SIXTY-SIX NATIONS took their places last week at the long pewlike desks of the London Geological Museum, all ranged alphabetically, in French, by tactful Alfred the Seater so that Cordell Hull of Tennessee (Etats Unis) sat at the end of a row, before, not next to, the kinky-polled delegates from Addis Ababa (Ethiopie). The League of Nations organizing committee invited 67 nations but Panama was too poor to accept. Among the official delegates is one Chief of State: President Edmund Schulthess of Switzerland. There are eight Prime Ministers, 20 Foreign Ministers, 80 assorted Finance and other Cabinet Ministers and heads of central banks. Potent foreign statesmen in London are by no means limited to the official delegates. At least one extra King will be there, lean, white-chinned Feisal of Irak, come to watch proceedings, coach his delegates from the sidelines, and renew his acquaintance with two of Britain's most photographed beauties: Lady Louis Mountbatten and the Marchioness of Milford Haven, who visited his arid kingdom unescorted last November in search of desert thrills. Many a European Premier not present last week is expected to pay at least one visit. Tickets to view the august assemblage were rarer than rubies last week. The grey & green assembly hall is normally the central court of the Museum. Here 708 seats have been installed. Because the galleries surrounding it must also be used as corridors, the hall has a total capacity of but 1,000 with only 45 seats for the general public. The U. S. Embassy was told last week that only one lady's ticket per nation per day will be available.
U. S. citizens have already had opportunity to see most of the chief delegates. One by one they have come to Washington on the invitation of President Roosevelt to discuss their problems, pose for a ritual photograph in the White House portico while the Roosevelt smile grew progressively fainter.
One important delegate whom the U. S. did not see was roly-poly Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovitch Litvinov. A veteran of most world conferences since 1921, he has an annoying habit of puncturing the complacency of European statesmen by attacking the empty phrases they use to veil their lack of accomplishment, knowing well that every sally at the expense of the bourgeois world brings him salvos of applause from Moscow. Not one peep came from M. Litvinov last week. Observers believed he would work hard and say little for many days to come. Theoretically a world economic conference should mean nothing to a Communist, bound to the principle of economic nationalism more firmly than any high tariff Tory. But until the aims of Russia's Five-Year Plan become realities Russia must trade with the outside world. The Anglo-Russian embargoes, results of the British engineers' propaganda trial two months ago, have been a serious blow to the Soviet. It is a safe bet that M. Litvinov will do nothing to disturb the Conference until he has finished his private bargaining with the British Foreign Office in an effort to have both embargoes lifted without loss of face by either country.