EX-MINISTER’S DOWNFALL

Taranaki Daily News, 15 July 1929, Page 9

EX-MINISTER’S DOWNFALL

’IMPRISONMENT FOR FRAUD. BRILLIANT FRENCH FINANCIER. By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. United Service.. Paris, July 12. Hie former Finance Minister, Louis Lucien Klotz, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and fined 50 francs on charges of uttering, cheques when he had insufficient means to meet them, and of issuing bills of exchange with false signatures.

A sensation was caused on December 11 in the Senate by the announcement by M. Paul Doumer, a former Minister of Finance, that the Minister of Justice, M. Barthou, intended to seek authority to initiate legal proceedings against M. Klotz, who was a brilliant financier, and had been Minister of Finance in several Governments. M. Klotz was reported later to have had a breakdown and been taken to a mental hospital. He had sustained heavy losses in financial transactions, and in gambling at a seaside casino. It was alleged that he paid his losses with cheques which were dishonoured. He was later declared by three mental specialists “perfectly sane and fully responsible for his acts.” It was revealed that M. Klotz had lost all his fortune, estimated at 8,000,000 or 10,000,000 francs, in gambling on the turf or in casinos or clubs. One complaint against him last November was that in buying a motor-car for £1720 he had given two cheques which failed to be honoured. For a £4BO necklace in a jeweller’s shop in the Avenue de I’Opera it was said he gave a cheque for £BOO, asking for the difference in cash.

The cheque was not honoured. On another occasion M. Klotz was said to have purchased a pearl necklace for £6400, paid with a cheque which was not honoured. The necklace was resold the following day. M. Klotz was born in Paris in January, 1868. His family came from Alsace. He is a lawyer by profession and practises at the Court of Appeal. But he early began to occupy himself with journalism and politics. In 1893 he stood for the Chamber of Deputies, but was not elected until 1898, when the Somme Department returned him. He soon became a member of the Finance Commission and rapporteur-generale for the Budget. In 1910 he joined M. Briand’s Cabinet as Finance Minister and retained that post under M. Caillaux (1911), M. Poincare (1912), and M. Briand (1913). In M. Barthou's Government, formed in the same year, he was Minister of the Interior.

On the outbreak of the war M. Klotz served at first as a reserve officer under the Governor of Paris. Then he returned to Parliament, where he was appointed president of the War Damage Commission and later of the Budget Commission. In September, 1917, he again became Finance Minister in M. Poincare’s Government, and held that office in the Clemenceau Cabinet which followed it. ” "