FRENCH POLITICAL SENSATION

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 80, 28 December 1928, Page 8

FRENCH POLITICAL SENSATION

KLOTZ DECLARED RESPONSIBLE FOR ACTIONS REMOVAL TO PRISON EXPECTED (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegra pa.—Copyright.) (Australian Press Association.) (Rec. December 27, 9.50 p.m.) • Paris, December 26. Officially appointed medical men report that Louis Klotz is responsible for his actions. Klotz’s removal is expected to Saute Prison, but his counsel is demanding a second opinion. A message early this month stated that M. Klotz, the brilliant lawyer, finance expert, and former Minister, had been taken to a mental home. Paris newspapers stated that this was the result of unfortunate financial transactions and heavy gambling. A later message stated that a sensation had been created by the announcement that the Minister of Justice was seeking authority to take legal proceedings against Klotz. The “Temps” alleged that the charges included uttering cheques to the value of £1720, when he bad insufficent funds to meet them, and forging signatures to bills of exchange. M. Klotz joined M. Briand’s Cabinet in 1910 as Finance Minister and retained that post under M. Caillaux (1911), M. Poincare (1912), and M. Briand (1913). In M. Barthou’s Government, formed in the same year he was Minister of the Interior. On the outbreak of the war M. Klotz served at first as a reserve officer under the Governor of Paris. Then he returned to Parliament, where be was appointed president of the War Damage Commission and later of the Budget Commission. In September, 1917, he again became Finance Minister in M. Poincare’s Government, and held that office in the Clemenceau Cabinet which followed it, so that he was one of the signatories of the Treaty of Versailles, of whose most stringent clauses he was a strong advocate. He is a member of the Nationalist Party.