POINCARE.

Waipa Post, Volume XXI, Issue 1281, 15 August 1922, Page 2

POINCARE.

A CHARACTER SKETCH

M. Poincare, formerly President of France and now Prime Minister, has occasioned much hostile criticism, in a section of the British press on account of his uncompromising attitude toward both Russia and Gerniand; but a more sympathetic view is taken by the writer of a character sketch which was recently published in the London Daily Mail. For ton years past, says the writer, M. Poincare hasi been one of the most prominent figures on the horizon of British foreign politics, and yet, although he has made several journeys to Great Britain as President of the French Republic, as Prime Ministei of France, and as< Rector of Glasgow University, he is still strangely misunderstood by a large part of the British public. In some quarters M. Poincare is regarded as 1 a sort of French war lord, a sabre-rattler,, an aggressive Imperialist whose dream it is to raise France into the military bully of Europe. The real truth : s that M. Poincare is net only a friend of Britain, but also his temperament is such that .he stands nearer to the British in character than do most of his fellow-countrymen. He is an extremely hard-working man. modest in bearing, loyal to his friends, ardently patriotic. He has brought into politics some of the qualities lie acquired in his legal training—precis ion, logic, and a scrupulous respect for the terms of a written pledge. When he was elected Rector of the University of Glasgow he set to work at once to deliver his inaugural address in the language of his hearers; there one gets the . painstaking and thoroughgoing nature of the man. I was talking the other day to one of M. Poincare’s colleagues at the Paris Bar, a man who has both defended cases against him and has been briefed on the same side, I found the estimate based on this private intercourse with M. Point are as a man was identical with my own impressions based on political intercourse. “ When he came back to the bar after being Premier,” said this French counsol, “ he was just as punctual at appointments', just as careful about the details of the least important cases as if he were a hard-working young barrister whose name was quite unknown. When other counsel wtould send a junior to represtent them at a conference, he, a former Prime Minister, always himself attended. “ Remember, in trying to understand M. Poincare," went on this colleague, “ that he is a Lorrainer, that be was brought up in a province half of which had been torn away by the Germans in 1870. From youth up he and his fellow-country-men of the eastern frontier of France had the vision of their country’s! danger from Germany ever present to their eyes. They looked across a frontier lacking all natural defence to see at their doors a military empire greedy of domination and conquest. His own country home in the .Meuse was destroyed during the recent war. But in spite of the stern lessons of his youth, M. Poincare did everything he could to avert the war. A new Yellow Book was published recently which reveals his efforts to keep peace in the Balkans in 1912, when he was Premier. His book on the origins of the last war contains copies of the letters he exchanged with King George on the eve of the conflict, that prove fully how false it is to say he welcomed it.”