THE REAL POINCARE.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 October 1922, Page 9

THE REAL POINCARE.

HIS DISTRUST OF GERMANY. M. Poincare, former President of France and now Prime Minister, has occasioned much hostile criticism in a section of the British Press on account of bis uncompromising attitude toward both Russia and Germany. The following is a more sympathetic character sketch of the spokesman of France., contributed recently to the London Daily Mail: For ten years past M. Poincare has been one of the most prominent figures on the horizon of British foreign politics r and yet, although he has made several journeys to Great Britain as President of the French Republic, as Prime Minister 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 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 is that M. Poincare 'is not 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 he acquired in his legal training—precision, logic, and a scrupulous respect for the terms of a. written pledge. When ho 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 j Bar. a man who has both defended oases against him and has been briefed on the i same side. I found that the estimate based on this private intercourse with M. Poincare as a man was identical with my own impressions based on political intercourse. "When he came back to the Ear after being Premier,” said this French counsel, "he was just as punctual at appointments, just as careful about the details of the least important cases as if lie were a hard-working young barrister whose name was quite unknown. When other counsel would send a junior to represent them at a conference, he. a formed Prime Minister, always himself attended.

"Remember, in trying to understand M. Poincare,” went cn this colleague, "that he is a Lorrainer, that ho was brought up in a province half of which had been torn away by the Germans in 1870. From youth un he and his fellowcountrymen of the Eastern frontier of France had the v'sion of their country’s danger from Germany ever-present to their eves. They looked across a frontier lacking all natural defence to see at their doora 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.”