OBITUARY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 21 June 1937, Page 8

OBITUARY

M. DOUMERGUE NOTED FRENCH STATESMAN lU mien Prt-tse AswM-inluMi- By Eleelrio Telegraph Enpvi isht i PARIS, 18th June. The death has occured of M. Gaston Doumergue, the noted French statesman. M. Doumergue, born in 1863, entered the law in 1885, and was a Judge in Cochin-China from 1890 to 1892. He entered the Chamber of Deputies as a Radical Socialist in 1893, was vicepresident of the chamber in 1905 and 1906, Minister of Colonies from 1902 to 1905, Minister of Commerce from 1906 to 1907, and Minister of Public Instruction from 1908 to 1910. M Doumergue entered the Senate in 1910, was Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1913 and 1914, envoy to Russia in 1917, and President of the Senate in 1923. He was the first Protestant- President of the Republic, holding office from 1924 to 1931.

M. Doumergue was the man to whom France turned for stability after the Stavisky riots of 1934. M. Daladier, who preceded him, resigned on 7th February, and issued a statement in which he said that the Government, while responsible for the maintenance of order, declined to ensure it by the employment of exceptional methods which might result in repressive action and bloodshed. M. Doumergue, who was pressed by the President, M. Lebrun, to form a Ministry, said at first that he. did not feel equal to the task, but finally agreed' to undertake it provided that all living ex-Prime Ministers gave him their support. The political leaders who had{ held office since the war up to that time were the deputies MM. Tardieu. Daladier. Chautemps. and Herirot, and the Senators MM. Laval, Sarraut, Paul-Boncour, Poincare, Steeg, Millerand, and Francois Marsal. M. Doumergue contended that the Chamber must give a demonstration of union and that tension must be relaxed. In November of the same year M. Doumergue, having had the support of the Socialist Party refused him, and having been forced to form a Ministry of Truce, as he termed it, resigned after a crisis arose over the matter of reform of the Constitution.

M. Doumergue has been described as “not the man of mediocrity which Republican timidity so frequently elects to the Presidency.” He had qualities which were valuable because were the ones prized by the majority of his countrymen, shrewd foresight and level-headedness, allied to a Provencal cheeriness of smile and a keen sense of humour, famous products of his native town of k AiguesVives. He was elected to the Presidency, also, at a time of crisis when caution was eminently necessary, a combination of Radicalism and Socialism having submerged ; the country at the elections, and the triumphant Cartel clamouring for the spoils of victory. Throughout that period when mushroom Ministries rose and vanished, Doumergue, the representative of the moderates, exercised his tact and persuasion to advantage.