A CONFERENCE PERSONALITY.

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 17 June 1933, Page 4

A CONFERENCE PERSONALITY.

Because a solution of .the Chinese “problem” has become more important to the world during the last two years than it has ever been 'before, a great deal of interest centres upo.n .the personality of Dr. T. V. Soong, China’s delegate to the World Economic Co;nferenee. Dr. Soong has been Finance Minister of Chinese governments, first at Canton and then ait Nanking, since 1925, and is .regarded ais the foremost Chinese financier of his generation. But he has become more than a financial genius in China; he has become the standard bearer of enlightened Chinese progrOssivism, fighting intrenched feudalism!, slowly pushing back the guerrilla military incubus which has grown out of feudalism, and attempting .to develop a genuine patriotism and concern for public welfare in a country where the family’s interests always have stood above those of the nation. Dr. Soong still is a young mam. Only eighteen years have passed since he obtained his degree in economies at Harvard University and began the apprenticeship in- an American bank which quickly gave opportunities for development of his financial genius after his return to Canton in 1922. He was given great power promptly and has steadily -enhanced both power and reputation. In China he is regarded generally as the country’s outstanding statesman', a skilful diplomat in the realm either of Chinese or of Western politics.