THE NEW CHANCELLOR.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 14787, 14 December 1918, Page 3

THE NEW CHANCELLOR.

The new German Chancellor is of the people, his father, Karl Ebert, being well known as a. Heidelberg master tailor. He was born at Heidelberg on November 4th, 1871. Therefore he is a Badener and a fellow countryman of Prince Max (heir to tiro Baden* crown), and .the Imperial Regent, who appointed him to the high post vacated by himself. After having received his elementary education at one of t the Heidkiberg State schools, Friedrich Ebert was apprenticed to a Heidelberg saddler. The smell of the leather was apparently distasteful to the future Clmnic&lior. He preferred the soent of printing ink, for m 1892 he migrated to Bremen, and was editing the Bremer Buergerzeitung, of Socialistic tendencies. The Socialist leaders are, or have been, journalists j who quickly became editors, the more j enterprising found their own journals. After eight years of editing, Heir Ebert became the secretary of the Workers' Association of Bremen. By the end of 1905 Herr Bbert had become a member of the committee of the Younger Workers' Section of the German Socialist Party. From 1900 to 1906 he wag an influential member of the Bremen Citizens' Association^ and the reward of his devotion to the Socialist cause was his election to the Reichstag m 1912. Next year he became a member of tlie committee of the German Social Democratic Party. Since the war he has never opposed the Government m the violent way some of his more extremie fellowSocialist® have done. Yet he is undoubtedly a forward Socialist and a "stalwart," who is prepared to suffer for his opinions. The difference between a man like Ebert and one like Liebkneoht Ls that Ebert is a man of affairs while Liebknecht can see ortly his side of the case. Hen.' Ebert can hardly be accu.'Kjd of being an opportmist, but lie nev-ar fails to take full advantage of every opportunity to. advance his cause avid his Influence m his paa*ty, always with am air of reasonableness, which gains him friends, while lug opponents aj-e made to feel that be is thoroughly: m, easiest. There is no doubt that the new Chancellor is a very able man, and tlat Jx; has arf instinct for affairs. He has made his personality deeply felt among hL--fellow Socialists; now he has the opportunity of serving not on.ly his party but the State. He has already shown himself to be a remarkable man ; be may prove a great statesman. As he rose m influence, Herr Ebert showed no swollen head. He did not buy a showy house, but continued to live m a 'modest :way m the Triptow quarter of Berlin, a. north-eastern suburb of the capital.