MILLERAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18574, 29 November 1920, Page 8

MILLERAND.

PRESIDENT OF FRANCE. A uirong, rather heavily trail* moo with grey hair and bushy black eyehis Ko ]d-rmmed pince-nez, wiTa clear-cut, JudkU WjMj ouent without verbosity, and relying rSctß rather than on rhetoric to carry conviction into the minds of his hear-ers-that is Alexandre Millerand, who waV elected President of the French Republic (writes a French journalist, Robert L. Cm). A Cabinet Minister ot great experience, he has a tine recoil as the init ator of the weekly dayTf rest for workers, of the laws for the limifcation of women's work, of old age pensions, of the extension, of the powers of tho trade unions, of the dcrelepment of the mercantile navy, and of the regulation of industrial ownership. Sixty-ono years of age, M. Millerand is still in his prime a » a statesman. He was admitted to the Bar in 1881 worked on M. Clemenceau's staff in the paper "Justice," became n de nutv in 1885, and distinguished himself in rrmiv/ a fight apninst Genera BouMnaer, both in the House and in his newspaper "La Volx." An Independent Socialist, for many years he was known a* the most eloquent # champion of the lights of trade unions in the Courts and in the papers of which he successively became oditur, the "Petit© llepublique" and the " Lantern©. * After his important work as Minister of Commerce in the Waldeck-Eoussean Cabinet, he came to power again in 1909, as Minister of Public Works; tlien. in 1912, M. Poincare chose him as Minister of War. a post which he occupied until his chief was elevated to the Presidency of tho Republic. From the first day of the great war M. Millerand was one of the most active agents in tho organisation of the French resistance io tlie German inrader. On August 3, 1914. he became president of the Ce .mittee of Supp Wes at the French War Office, and. on the 25th of the ,same month, at the most critical moment of the war, he valinntly accepted the portfolio of War Minister. Last Jarruarv, when M. Clemenoeau resigned, he became Prime. Mi lister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in this capacity inaugurated policies and outlined programmes which far surpassed in BCnpe anything that he had undertaken before, in home politics, in war, or in the administration of the restored provinces. A, man of few words, inclined to meditation on the grave questions of the day, Alexandre Millerand has always gone straight ahead, with a remarkable disregard of public and parliamentary opinion when he thought that he was in the right and it the wrong. He should prove a strong 1 President.