DEATH OF BRIAND

Southland Times, Issue 21648, 9 March 1932, Page 5

DEATH OF BRIAND

FRENCH STATESMAN ELEVEN TIMES PRIME MINISTER “ARCHITECT OF PEACE” (British Official Wireless.) Rugby, March 7. An eminent French statesman, M. Aristide Briand, died at his Paris home this afternoon following a heart attack. M. Briand, who was eleven times Prime Minister of France, had been a warm advocate for peace among the nations. lie played an important part in framing the Locarno Treaty and was joint author, with Mr Kellogg, of the Pact of Paris. His death is profoundly regretted in London, where he had many friends. The King, in a telegram to the French President, says: "It is with profound regret that I learned of the sudden death of M. Briand and I hasten to express my sympathy at the loss of a distinguished statesman whose labours in the cause of peace and goodwill among the nations will ever be held in honoured and grateful remsnibrance.” Lord Tyrell, the British Ambassador at Paris, transmitted a letter of sympathy from the Prime Minister to M. Tardieu, Prime Minister of France, and also conveyed to him personal expressions of sympathy' on behalf of Mr Stanley Baldwin and Mr Ramsay MacDonald. In the name of his colleagues and himself he assured the French Government of their deep sympathy in the great loss the French nation had suffered. M. Tardieu referred to the passing of his “old friend.” “We have been working together fur well over a generation, and I feel his death with peculiar keenness,” he said. "M. Briand dedicated the best years of his long life without, respite to the high purpose of creating a good understanding between the peoples, for which his name will ever be famous, a monument more lasting than bronze. He was indeed an architect of peace and his loss will be deeply felt, not in France only, but also among all men of goodwill throughout the world.” When the news of M. Briand's death was read al a meeting at Geneva of lhe Standing Orders Committee of the Disarmament Conference, delegates stood in silence with bowed heads. A touching tribute was paid, by the chairman, M. Hymans. During the debate in the House of Commons on the Navy Estimates, which show a considerable decrease. Sir Austen Chamberlain referred to the passing of M. Briand, remarking that the cause of peace needed new friends to take the place of those who had passed away. "No man was a better friend of that cause and no man espoused that cause more loyally,” he said. “We who mourn him may find encouragement and stimulus to continue his effort by following his example.” In an interview at Geneva Sir John Simon, the British Foreign Secretary, said: “Few statesmen of our time won so noble a place in the history of mankind as M. Briand, alike by his love for and devoted service to his own country and by his whole-hearted work for the cause of peace and international friendship. At this difficult. moment in the League's history we can pay no better tribute than by doing our utmost to cherish the great institution to the building of which M. Briand devoted so much enthusiasm.”

MODEST SUKKOENDINGS BRLYND’S LAST MOMENTS. “THE GREATEST EUROPEAN.” (United Press Assn.—By Telegraph—Copyright.) (Rec. 5.5 p.m.) Paris, March 7. In a room as bare as a hermit's cell, M. Briant! breathed his last, despite every care of specialists in rationing an abnormal consumption of cigarettes. He became unconscious and succumbed to heart failure in his modest home in the Avenue Kleber whither he returned at the instance of Drs Vacquez and Marx, who were unable to undertake adequate treatment at his country home in Cockerel. M. 'Briand was in bed since his arrival anti grew worse last night," being too weak to move this morning. He was a bachelor, but a nephew anti niece and three collaborators were present at the death-bed. M. Briand began his career as a contributor to an anarchist newspaper as an advocate of direct action, and enderl as a single-minded devotee to the peace of the world. For a French politician he was rich, but the rleath chamber contained only a bedstead, table anil chest of drawers on which .stood a loving cup, the gift of Sir Austen Chamberlain in commemoration of Locarno. His leonine f features seemed to have recovered the strength of youth as the body lay in the wide white bed in the brilliant limelight dressed in the -customary evening clothes, awaiting the lying in state and national funeral. Celebrities paying their last homage crowded into the little pink and yellow rooms hung with political cartoons and signed portraits of famous associates. M. Tardieii, white with emotion, stepped from " the centre of a hbshed group into the bedroom and kissed the dead statesman’s hand. A crowd gathered in the street, many unaffectedly weeping. Tributes to the dead patriot were paid by monarchs, statesmen and famous people of nearly every country in the world, echoing and amplifying Sir Austen Chamberlain’s noble epitaph—“ The Greatest European of us all.” Lord Cecil honoured his statesmanship and Mr Arthur Henderson cited the Disarmament Conference as his monument. When the news of his death reached Geneva, the Assembly adjourned. M. Bouisson informed the Chamber of Dcputces of the death of its greatest orator, lifter which M. Tardieu spoke and the Assembly rose in token of mourning. The leading newspapers devote editorials to M.

Briand’s career, the English papers emphasizing his steadfast friendship to Britain throughout all the years of war and trial.

Aristide Briand, the son of an innkeeper, was born in March, 1862, in the Breton town of St. Nazaire. He obtained a scholarship at the Nantes Lycee. and later studied law, becoming an advocate at the age of 20. He practised at Nantes till as the sequel to an affair with a married woman he was removed from the roll. He then became editor of the Socialist paper Laterne but proved himself the possessor of a calculating brain rather than a fiery revolutionary temperament. For this reason he did not obtain the same influence over the masses as Jaut'es, but thanks to his convincing oratory he came to the, front and was made secretary of the Socialist Party. He aloo secured his reinstatement as an advocate and was thus able to make a name for himself in the courts as legal champion of the workers. After he had obtained the acquittal of a workman at St. Etienne his party secured his election to the Chamber in 1902. There Briand was conspicuous in the debates on the law separating the church and the State in 1905.

On March 13, 1906, Sarrien included him in his Cabinet as Minister of Education, a department which also dealt with religious questions. He thus 'had the task of enforcing the law with whose drafting he had had so much to do. He went to work cautiously, giving many concessions to the church and gradually succeeded in getting church property into the hands of the municipalities. Later as Minister of Justice he attempted, but in vain, to have the, death penalty abolished. On October 23, 1909, Briand became Premier and Minister of the Interior. A. coup which earned him the lasting resentment of the trade unionists was his mobilization of the railwaymen in 1910 as a means of ending the railway strike. He had then long forsaken Socialism and had created a Centre Party. On January 17, 1911, an exofficial of the Chamber who had lost his reason made an attempt on the life of Briand, who, however, was not injured.

Briand's offer in April, 1927, to enter into a pact with the United States to outlaw war between the two nations led Mr Kellogg to propose a multi-lateral pact to be signed by all the great. Powers. Briand urged that it should be signed by all the Powers, but stipulated that, if any one of the signatories broke the compact, it should at once become null and void for all of them so as to prevent it from paralysing the others in such an eventuality. He also insisted that it should not replace or detract from the obligations of the signatories to the League Covenant, to the treaties of guarantee of neutrality or to the Locarno Agreement. The sequel was the submission to the Powers of rival draft treaties by Briand and Mr Kellogg. Meanwhile on February 7 a new Franco-American treaty of arbitration was signed. The conclusion of a Franco-Yugoslav treaty in November, 1927, increased the coolness of French relations with Italy.

In September, 1928, he made a speech at the League Assembly which caused anger and consternation in Germany where it was declared to mean “the end of the policy of understanding.” He said that, while Germany was calling for disarmament, she could not be said to be disarmed herself with a huge number of trained men who could be added to her present army and her factories and constructive power which could easily be put to the work of supplying war material. No one, he added, could therefore think of disarming. In a statement to the Press, however, he took a milder tone, expressing a hope for a speedy understanding on reparations and Rhineland evacuation. When Poincare remodelled his Cabinet in November, 1928, Briand retained his post, but in 1929 the Premier took the lead in shaping foreign policy. How much Briand was responsible for the Young Plan agreement and the ratification of the Mellon-Berenger pact is not clear. But. when Poincare's illness led him to resign in July, 1929, Briand’s succession to office was taken for granted. He made no changes in the Cabinet, merely adding the Premiership to his Foreign Office duties. At the Hague Conference in August the initiative was taken from him by Mr Snowden and Mr Henderson, but Briand was able to counteract any idea of a French defeat by pointing out that the Young Plan as revised left France in a favourable position. On several occasions he put forward his scheme for the “United States of Europe.” In consequence of an adverse vote in the Chamber on internal policy on October 22, when the Government was defeated by 11 votes, he resigned and after a protracted crisis a Cabinet was formed by Tardieu in which Briand was once more Foreign Minister —his 20th portfolio, if reconstructed Cabinets are included.

Thanks to his eloquence and suavity of manner, Briand was nicknamed the charmer and the siren. He was a very persuasive speaker with dramatic gestures taught him by his actor friend Antoine and in some ways he resembled Mr Lloyd George. A man of infinite resource, he had a genius for surmounting difficulties. Briand, who divided the Nobel Peace Prize with Herr Strcsemann in 1926, was given the honorary degree of D.C.L. by Oxford.