GERMAN CHANCELLOR

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11652, 17 October 1923, Page 11

GERMAN CHANCELLOR

. HERR STRESEMANN'S CAREER.. Div Gustav Stresemann has long been a “candidate for the office of Chancellor, though it is. more than doubtful whether ho ever imagined himself accepting it in such difficult circumstances. .His predecessor disappears after reducing the -fabric of tho State almost to ruins, and him as heavy a task as ever Chancellor had to face, even in the last stages of the war. To solve the problems of the Ruhr, of reparations, of ‘State insolvency, and of an impossible currency, at a of heightened social unrest must require qualities of-very high order. ' The task certainly calls for optimism, and that, fortunately, is Dr. Stresemann’s -chief characterisic. Ambition may have carried' Dr. Stresemann to the threshold of the* Chancellorship, but it must in, hie? epee. have, needed considerable courage to cross it. He has not reached his \ resent, eminence in political affairs at the - bitterest time in their history without making enemies, lie has them in both, extreme camps, among the irreconsilables xtf tho Nationalists and the Communists. The former not long ago began openly* to. threaten him with the fate of Erzberger if he should further lend his influence to a settlement by understandings. They dad not influence him one hair's breadth. The Communists are threatening him today, but their threats bate not affected his prospective programme. ? A READY WIT,

Of other useful qualities* the new Chancellor brings with him ; jx>., smooth tl)e rough path of his new there msy be mentioned originality*/' clarity, arid energy. The verbal rapier is not a weapon suitable to the heavy ..German temperament, but when it comes to an exchange of wits Dr. ‘Strcsemann wields a very lively Schlager, as his opponent* have goqd reason to know. He is one of • the fpw speakers who can really hold thp Reichstag, as Mr Winston Churchill~tho comparison is inevitable—cai hold the IJouee of Commons. . Were there more like him the Reichstag might become a debating assembly and cease to be a irere lecture hall —to its great advantage. His views- op Socialism, which he Vtntld associate with citizenship in support >of. the modern State, were criticised by, Socialist and bourgeois alike; so, too, his aasociation with Stinnes, whoso puppet he is often said to bo. The critics - hare, for years accused him" of trimming his sails to the wind currents of popular oponion, and there are so many incidents in his career to give colour to the accusation, that it has become a legend. But those who have observed him in more recent times are inclined to the opinion that he has lately acquired deeper and more permanent and ‘ lees-swayed by the attractive course than ho used to be.

Dr. Strese lonri was born on May 10th, 1878, in Berlin. He studied history and political economy at the Universities at Berlin and Leipzig, and devoted the next few years of his life to organising industry, - He founded the Union of Saxon Industrialists and was for many years its secretory. Ho became associated with the National Liberal Party, and was first returned to the Reichstag in 1907. With, a brief interval, 191344, his Parliamentary career has been unbroken. On tho death of Bassermann in 1917 he became leader of the party. During the war. ho pursued strong annexation aims, and, when these hopes had fallen to the ground after tho defeat and collapse of the German, armies arid the-outbreak of the Revolution, he resisted the temptation to go over with his party to tho Democrats;, and so the German People's Party carne into being.—“ London Times."