STRESS OF WORLD PROBLEMS.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20497, 16 March 1932, Page 11

STRESS OF WORLD PROBLEMS.

MR KREUGER'S EXAMPLE. TRIBUTE BY BRITISH ECONOMIST. (UXJTED PKESS ASSOCIATION— EUCTBIC TELEGRAPH —COPYRIGHT.} LONDON, March 14. Mr J. M. Keynes (the British economist), broadcasting from London, paid a remarkable tribute to the late Mr Ivar Kreuger, the Swedish financier. He said his death was a poignant example of the helplessness of an individual to face many world problems. He was a mail with perhaps the greatest constructive financial intelligence of his age ; whose far-flung activities had been m the widest sense in the public interest, and who conceived it his mission, amid the chaos after the world war, to furnish a channel between countries whose resources were in surplus, and contries where they were desperately required. Yet Kreuger was crushed between the icebergs of a frozen world, to which no individual could restore the warmth of normal life.

EFFECT IN EUROPE. STOCKS MARKED DOWN. PARIS, March 14. That the banks were pressing Mr Ivar Kreuger, tho Swedish millionaire who committed suicide, is denied. It is known that he failed to obtain in America £6,600,000 due to Swedish banks on April lstj the failure to pay which would have involved their withholding sums to meet dividends. Financiers in Berlin fear a worldwide disaster, but London's only precaution is the marking down of all international stocks.

SHARES DECLINE. VALUES ON WALL STREET. (Received March 15th, 8 p.m.) NEW YORK, March 14. The downward repercussions of the suicide of Mr Ivar Kreuger, the Swedish millionaire, in the. world financial markets wero felt on Wall street, where the stocks and bonds of the Kreuger and Toll Company and allied interests sold off sharply. This, augmented by the death of Mr George Eastman, "the multi-millionaire, caused a general weakness on the Stock Exchange, which the favourable news of President Hindenburg's large plurality vote was unable to overcome. Closing prices represented broad declines in nearly all the issues. [Financial experts assert that in view of the complicated condition of tlio vast Kreuger interests, _ the full significance of the psychological reaction to his death cannot be determined, pending further developments. The news of tne suicide of Mx Eastman came late in the day's trading and apparently affected mainly his own company's shares, which closed at a decline J

STOCK MARKETS DEPRESSED. (Received March loth, 10.50 p.m.) LONDON, March 15. The stock markets of the world are depressed as tthe result of Mr Ivar Kreuger's death. Prices have been, heavilv marked down, but there is no panic. Prices of the Swedish Match Company's and other Kreuger shares in the London market indeed rallied from tho worst through a good deal of liquidation shares from the Continent.