Show france sticks astl acks to her aged aed rulers same men have been at helm of government for many years pai bails the incredible conservatism of this supposedly volatile and mercurial notion nation Is apparent in the lie faal that it alone among the great coun conn tries of the wort world Is still governed bi the min men who ruled it before the alie war and not only by men who governed it before the war but by men who first took power in the time of benjamin harrison Barrt son grover cleveland and william liam mckinley there la is a whole generation of 0 Fren frenchmen climen who lieve never known their country and who apparently never will know it when raymond Ponc Pone alre gastan Arli aristide tide adriand louis barthau and georges leagues were not in one high office or another this Is the only nation on earth which goes on and on giving power and that by free election ovet and over to the same group of men Pol started 37 years ago raymond haymond now premier and still considered indispensable was first a cabinet minister 37 years ago age I 1 in n 1692 lie ile was then so fresh tind and young that when lie he entered its his office eto to take ap his duties as minister of 0 education the doorkeepers took him film for president of dents association and tried to malie him send in tits his card the next year sa 83 years ago lie was for or the first time mikii minister after fter of finance I nance in and out of cabinet onice office he became premier for the first tinie in 1012 1912 elected resident president of the republic in 1913 ho he held beld that office during the whole of the war and until 1020 when he went back to the senate to ri sume resume the office of premier ile he Is now at sixty nine nice hartly hardy fiery and apparently wanted indefinitely briand was never a prime minister until 1009 a mere inere 20 years 1 ago since then lie be tins has headed ten cabinets and has been a cabinet minister in most of the others nut but even before it 1009 xa he was a political lender leader in 1000 pushing through parliament a law limiting tho the working day to 11 13 hours and in 1105 W fathering a low separating church and state w a low law which he had to become a minister to enforce in 1006 since the war briand has been a almost continuously foreign minister david lloyd george woodrow wll wil son charles barles B E hughes glies all of whom chor n carne came into political life later than oln enre or 11 have elthor either die died d or left the stage arland and gives no sign of retiring from the foreign office la in fact lie sews to have it lease on tile the building as long as it sta stands ads it would probably fall down from astonishment if he left the league deague of nations certainly would be lost without him in the slowly organized attempt nt at Euro european penn unity ho he Is the one figure who seems to liang in space independent ol of tinie time the present minister of justice louis barthol nar Bar thou with jules kellne headed a dual cabinet to in 1805 1895 5 more than a quarter of a s century ogo ago ali this cabinet lasted three years barthol was premier n again aln in 1013 and after ten months in that office gave way to gaston dommergue Doumer gue as premier doti don had but six months as premier elected president afterward for several years lie wits president of the senate and in 1024 was elected president of the republic an which tie will hold if he lives until 1031 georges leagues pronounced Il alleg leg was first a cabinet minister in 1898 31 years ago ahen he be was placed in charge of the ministry of education in n nod and out of several cabinets lie he hits has of late years settled down to a practically continuous occupancy of the ministry of marine as the french call navy it la Is curious that the roost most determined pacifist in the Pol cabinet should be minister of war paul prudent Pain faintere tere never intended to be a politician he had begun a brilliant capper as a mathematician when first the dreyfus case und and later the early lights of the wright brothers drew him from froin his professional chair in the dreyfus case he championed the accused allicer against the general staff determined to inn be an example of a jew whether innocent or guilty und and his interest tn in the first trofi dispatches of the wright brothers flight was so keen that tie he forced or persuaded the government to invite them to france and to finance their trip long before any ool clat clel attention was paid to them in america they keep beep Pain leve in the war department part ment to see that the army does not take the bit in its teeth he ele was war minister during the most disheartening part of the great war and has since been minister of finance and premier the latter twice during the last 12 years yeara |