TO THE POINT

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 3, 4 January 1936, Page 22

TO THE POINT

"Don't give me such wordy reports Tvhen you make them out in future," said the railway inspector to the line overseer. "Just put down the condition of the track as you find it. Leave out everything, that isn't to the point. I,want a business letter, not a novel." The overseer replied that he grasped the idea. A few days later the line was badly flooded, and the overseer wrote his report to the inspector in the new style. It read: "Where the railway was the river is."

"There are six great powers in the world if you don't count Tardieu," was one of Prince Bulow's famous tributes to the French statesman, M. Andre Tardieu, who has withdrawn his resignation from the Centre Republican Party, is one of France's most brilliant and powerful men. Sharp-mannered, self-contained, he presents first and last an impression of overwhelming intelligence, not in the least unaware of itself. There is an anecdote of old Clemenceau standing before a tapestry representing the creation of the world, and suddenly asking, "Mais, ou est Tardieu?" But nobody in France ever dreamed of denying this ex-journalist was a force, and when the circumstances favoured it, he was accepted without demur as the driving power of France. His brilliant articles in the world's Press, full of penetrating analysis of nations and affairs, leave one impression—his is the triumph of intelligence rather than the cheaper victory of personality and charm of tongue. , As a young man Tardieu was already famous as Georges Villiers, outstanding political writer in France. At thirty he had as much influence as a Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his position was more secure. Every clever young man in Paris envied the power of his pen. Georges Villiers had used diplomacy as a stepping stone to journalism. He graduated as attache, first to the Berlin Embassy, later to Petersburg, and only waited till he could print on his cards "ex-Secretaire d'Ambassade" before he posted back to Paris to try his fortune as a freelance. A casual meeting with the editor of "Le Temps" stood him in good stead; in a few weeks he was writing the leaders of the most important paper in France.. His career was helped, rather than hindered, by a certain notoriety as a gay young man of Paris. Soon, he was the mouthpiece of the Government in the Congo difficulty, and could be seen, in the interval between the opera and supper, dictating two different articles to two secretaries. Now came a phase in the charmed career. George Villiers was invited to lecture at Harvard. He spent three or four months in the United States, and got to laugh at Americans and to likd them.l Years afterwards, in the period of .French, dissatisfaction with America about the. war, debt and the European situation, Tardieu was to explain the French attitude to America in Press articles of admirable lucidity and detachment. In May, 1914, M. Tardieu was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. -Three months later he joined his regiment in the battlefield. In a short time his health broke i down and he was sent to general headquarters, but on the whole the army appeared to think he would he more useful in politics, so he was soon back in his seat in the Chamber, asking awkward questions about the war. Now came the great • mission to America, which proved the brilliant journalist a diplomat of the finest order. As High Commissioner of France in the United States, he had the difficult task of persuading America to boast less about making a spectacular entry on the battlefield than helping the Allies with foodstuffs, chemicals, coal, and steel". "Send the men, we can train them," urged M. Tardieu in effect. "Build the boats to' carry supplies!" In 1918, when there were two million Americans in France, Tardieu was recalled to Paris to become Commissioner of Franco-American Relations. At Versailles, Tardieu played a leading part as a "living encyclopaedia" to Wilson, Clemenceau, and Lloyd George. In the Chamber that sat from 1919 to 1924, he was uncompromisingly Nationalist, and on three occasions he refused to take office in a Radical Cabinet. The election of 1924 was overwhelmingly Radical, and M. Tardieu was defeated. After a period of retirement, he came back into politics as leader of the Moderate Liberal group, criticising the extreme radical politics of the Herriot Government, which were endangering French currency. When M. Poincare formed the Coalition Cabinet, which was to save the franc, M. Tardiifeu was chosen as Minister of Public Works, and oh the fall of the Government he succeeded M. Poincare. He was Premier and Minister of the Interior in 1929, 1930, and 1932.