FRANCE AND GERMANY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 36, 5 August 1911, Page 10

FRANCE AND GERMANY.

THE MEN AT TIIE HELM. THEIR PERSONALITIES IN BRIEF. In the negotiation between France and Germany on the Moroccan question the principal negotiators are Herr von Kidcr-len-Waechtcr, the German Foreign Secretary, and. Ilerr von Bethmann-Holliweg, the Imperial Chancellor; and, on the French side, M. de Selves, the new Foreign Minister and the new Prime Minister, M. Caillanx. Behind these two Ministers, however, is M. Delcasse, Minister for Marine, far away the most notable authority of the day on French foreign policy. France is represented at Berlin by M. Jules 'Oawbon, and the German Ambassador is Baron von Schoen. Herr von Kiderlen-Waschter's predecessor at the German Foreign Office. English rights and interests are now 'being asserted by Sir Edward Grey in London, and through Sir William Goschen, British Ambassador in Berlin, and Sir F. L. Bertie in Paris. The German and French representatives in London are respectively Count Wolff-Metternich, and M. Paul Oanibon. SIR EDWARD GREY.

Sir Edward Grey, says a Pall Mall Gazette writer, is the first Foreign Secretary who has sat in the House of Commons since Lord Palmerston, and, though he has had occasional lapses -from high Imperial line on which he started out he has had a sound record. He supported the 1900 Government throughout the South African Avar, he has publicly endorsed the Japanese Alliance and the Entente Cordiale. He is ft politician "who enjoys general goodwill, and his speeches smack of considered judgment rather than oratorical effect. This is why people took such serious notice of 'his grave speech of warning in March, 1909, concerning the rapid advance made by the Germans in building a fleet of battleships rivalling out own. His bird-like profile tops a seasoned athletic figure, for lie is a tennis champion of renown, and an expert (practical and literary) upon flyfishing. He was born in 18G2, and 'at the age of twenty succeeded in the baronetcy to his grandfather —also a wellknown Liberal politician in his day . He was educated at Winchester and Balliol, and has 'been in the House since 1885, his only previous l term' of office having been as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 1892 till 1895. His wife died in tragic circumstances soon alter ; he went to the Foreign Office. GERMANY'S FOREIGN MINISTER. Fifty-eight, and a bachelor, Herr von Kiderlen-Waschter combines with his South German jovality an extremely forceful temperament. For ten ' years Kiderlen-Waechfer—he is often called Von Kiderlen simply—held the relatively unimportant post of Minister to Rumania, From that point of vantage, however, lie has surveyed the development of affairs in the Balkans and the Near East, and has 'been a a Vigilant outpost of Germany's vaulting ambitions in those regions of possibility. Under the German Ministerial system the Foreign Secretaryship is ordinarily a negligible adjunct of the Imperial Chancellor's Department. Of vastly wider knowledge ot foreign affairs than his present chief, Dr von Bethmann-Hollweg, Von KiderlenWaschter is destined', in the opinion of Dr Wile, of the Daily Mail, both by training and temperament to convert the Foreign Secretaryship into a portfolio of more than nominal importance. Agreseiveness, which finds expression in a certain brusquenesn of manner, tenacity of purpose, keen political insight, uncommon energy, courageous initiative, quickness an independence of judgment, are Herr von Kiderlen-Waechter's dominant traits. He typifies in characteristic degree the political phenomenon native to Germany known as the Realpolitiker, the statesman who concentrates on the purely practical. Pan-Germans who clamor for deeds find not words in diplomacy are not likely to find the new Foreign Secretary lacking in the attributes they most admire. Yet he conducted with consummate tact and conciliation the tortuous pour-parlers which led up to the Franco-German accord over Morocco a vear ago. ' PRINCE BULOW'S SUCCESSOR. The Kaiser's present Chancellor is his Iwvhood's friend l and college "chuim." That and' the circumstance that Dr Theobald von Bethmann-llollweg is of Jewish origin, like the Colonial Secretary, Herr Dernberg, were the facts standing out wost prominently in connection with his elevation to the office hallowed with the memories and traditions of Bismark. The appointment did not take Germany by surprise. As Prince Bulow's ViceChancellor and a known intimate of the Emperor of many year.? standing, Von Bethmann-Hollweg had long been a logical candidate for the Chancellorship, and his selection became a foregone conclusion from the moment Prince Bulow, in response to the Kaiser's invitation, nominated him as his .successor. The fifth Chancellor is a born Brandenburger, a native of Hoben-Finow, a village in the Mark, three-quarters of an hour west of Berlin. He is fifty-five vears old. His family, ennobled in 1840, is nn old-time Frankfort merchant and banking dlynasty, prominent in the commerce of South Germany for several centuries. Originally it consisted of two branches, Bethmann and Hollweg, which became united under a single hyphenated name through intermarriage. The founder of the Bethmann branch was driven from Holland in the seventeenth century on account of his religion. Chancellor voni Bethmann-Hollweg's grandfather was' the first of ithe family to identify himself with public life. An excellent lawyer, he became professor of jurisprudence at Bonn University, receiving the patent of nobility as a mark of distinction for his learning. As a member of the Prussian Legislature in the 'forties, he was in the thick of the constitutional struggles which had their culmination in 1848, and ten years later he l>ecame Minister for Education in a Liberal Cabinet. M. DELCASSE.

M. Delcasse is, perhaps, the most prominent figure in international politics. His greatest achievement was the "Entente Cordiale." He was the firgt Minister to think of bringing England and France together. In fact, according to M. Victor BeTard, M. Delcasse announced his intention of winning Britain's friendship the very day after the settlement of the Fashoda incident. On t/he other hand, it has been pointed out that French and English opinions were ripe for thi.s cordial understanding long before M. Delcasse brought it to realisation.

Jf. Delcasse's greatest blunder was his conduct of the Moroccan affair in 1905, which brought France to the verge of war with Germany. He went ahead with his policy in the face of obvious German irritation and without telling his colleagues that tjhey might at any moment be involved in a struggle with the German nation. Franco was not ready mentally or materially for war. and the Foreign Minister who had blundered into this peril was at once thrown aside. If. Delcasse. whatever his faults may be, is earnest to the point of impetuosity. He rose to <prominenee again on the navy scandals, which hiive gravely agi'tated the French people, and devoted nil his energy and eloquence to awakening the Chamber to a sense of the necessity of the reorganisation and rehabilitation of French maritime power. M. Delcasse was Minister for Foreign i Affairs in the Brisson, the Waldeek-

Rousseau, Combes, and Rouvier Cabinets from 1898 to June, 1905, when he resigned in consequence of the Morocco crisis. He returned to office as Minister for Marine in the' Cabinet formed by M. Monis, in March last, and occupies the same post under M. Berteaux.