NEW PRESIDENT OF FRANCE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1652, 20 January 1913, Page 7

NEW PRESIDENT OF FRANCE.

M. POINCARE ELECTED.

STORMY SCENES.

CHALLENGE TO A DUEL.

By TeleerftDh—Preii Assonlation—CoDTriirht Paris, January 17. M. Raymond Poincare, at present Prime Minister, has been elected President of the' Ij'rench. Republic for the next seven years, in succession to M. Fallieres.

'.The voting in the final ballot was as follows— , A M. Poincare ... 1 483 ■ Mi Pams 280 M. Vaillant 69

The result of the election was awaited by a great crowd in the public places, and the railways were strongly guarded.

The session of the National Assembly, comprising the members of both Houses, which elects the President, was opened by M. Antoine Dubost, President of, the Senate, a candidate who had retired from the contest. ' The sitting common cod with a Royalist demonstration, and there were many noisy scenes. M. Clemencean, the well-known exPremier, insulted M. Poincare, and tho_ latter appointed M. Briand, another-ex-Premier, and M, Klotz, Minister! for Finance, as his seconds to arrange a duel. The incident, which was due to a misunderstanding, was afterwards amicably settied. • M, Clemencean has headed a niovement amongst the extreme Radicals against M. Poincare. OVATION TO M. POINCARE. MADMEN ARRESTED. . \.7 ; ■ " (Rec. January 19, 5.5 p.m.) 1 Paris, January 19. M. Poincare, after his election, received i a tumultuous ovation on proceeding to the Elysees, tho President's palace, where M. Fallieres him. Two madmen were arrested.'., One was armed with a revolver, and the other tried, to enter the Assembly,, declaring .that ' he was a'. candidate for the Presidency. M: Poms, Minister for Agriculture, was so certain of his election that ho resigned his portfolio in the Cabinet. M. POINCARE'S CAREER. M. Poincaro declined to form a Ministry. twice, before the President of the French Republic persuaded him, on January 13, 1912, to undertake the 'task. When ho completed his Ministry, the list was acknowledged to contain soihe of the strongest brains in France. To'ihavo induced, lor instance, Al. Leon Bourgeois (twice the Prime Minister) to take the thankless post of Minister for Labour, showed M. Poincaro's powers. ' He himsolf united tho Premiership with the Ministry for Foreign following"Lord Salisbury's example in thus doubling the burden of offlco. .... . . Raymond Poincare is fifty-two years old. Ho entered the law, and worked up a large practice in the Courts. , As a young man of twenty-seven he wa9 elected a Deputy. Within five years he had entered tho Cabinet as Minister for Pub-

lie Instruction. . Later, ho was 'Minister for Finance, returning to the sphere of national education for. a short time. The Chamber of Deputies choso him to be' Vice-Pxosident' (analogous to . our Chairman of Committees in tho Houso of Commons), and his urbanity and tact made him an ideal controller of debate. He was elected Senator in 1903; It. the Bh<)rt-lived Ministry ,of M. Sarrien, bo laid tho lines of an income-tax, having, studied our British system carefully. M. Poincaro is ambitious, and this (says a recent "Daily Mail" writer) may pos-. sibly result in his succeeding M. Fallieres as President of tho Republic. He is clear and epigrammatic as n, speaker— what oould be a. happier definition of progress than "order in'motion?"—and has tho gift of working well with other men. Ho wants France to have her "place in the sun," but is too experienced in foreign affairs to mistake truculonce for enterprise. Hi 9 visit to Russia was thorough success, and his alert aotion in the Balkan crisis was well-timed.

In appearanco. il. Poincare looks the echolar rather than the politician. Ho is a member of the French Academy, and is -well read, knowing British leading authors and admiring their ; work. Given a continuance of his present good health, M; Poincare will write his name high among modern statesmen. Ho has managed to emerge already from two critical debates with added" distinction and success.l In speaking, he has what Matthew Arnold would have called a "sweet reasonableness," against which truoulence can make little effect.. "•