THE GERMAN CHANCELLOR.

Taihape Daily Times, 4 January 1918, Page 6

THE GERMAN CHANCELLOR.

Count von Hertling, the new Chancellor of Germany has been described as the loading Catholic layman in Germany. When he became Bavarian Minister President in 1912, he had long been the trusted and authoritative chief of the Centre (Catholic) party in the Reichstag, He owed his Parliamentary prominence mainly to his solid academic attainments. As an erudite professor of philosophy and the author of such works as “Matter and Form and Aristotle’s Definition of the Soul” and “On the Limits of the Mechanical Interpretation of Nature,” he was blindly venerated by the rank and file of the party. In all the gifts wMch usually make for success in democratic politics he is signally lacking. Physically he is an insigniflicant-looking little man, well under medium size, and his thin voice would never have been audible m the Reichstag had it not been that he spoke only when his party had to g*ivc its decision on some vital matter which commanded absolute silence. For the rest, he preferred supremacy in the j committee-room to success in the open 1 chamber, and willingly relinquished the laurels of debate to politicans of rougher fibr'e. When he took over the Bavarian Premiership he was compelled to give up his seat in the Reichstag, but at the same Ume he became chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Federal Council. This office was one of the sops flung to Bavaria at the time of the formation of the German Empire. The committee rarely meets in normal times; but it is convened at moments of international crisis. Its meetings, like all the other proceedings of the Federal Council, take place in secret, and it is very seldom that any information about them reaches the outside world. As has nearly always been the case, the Catholics hold the balance of power in the Reichstag, and they have lately shown signs of getting out of hand as a result of the pressure of popular dissatisfaction. With Count Hertling as Chancellor, comments the London Daily Telegraph, the Government will find it much easier to prevent them from breaking away altogether. On the other hand, it is highly improbable that the Centre followed Erzbergor’s lead without having assured Itself of at any rate, the qualified approval, of a man in Count Hertling’s dominant position. It may therefore be said that his appointment involves the adoption by the Government of the main . orinciples of the Centre policy. On

the other hand, Count Hortling is not the man to handle an acute Parliamentary crisis, and if the German Socialists declare war on him, there may be some very interesting developments in the Reichstag.