The Washington times., 1934-03-17

POSELEOH HLuy OS W LtG JULuTG, HO
man can S1y.")
BY H. r. KNICKERBOCKER
international News Service Staff
Correspondent
Copyright, 1884, by International
News Service. Reproduction in whole
Or part forbidden.)
PARIS, March II GN.S).-
Forty years ago, Louis Barthou
walked into his office in the
French Ministry of Public Works
and read in LIE Temps an item
about himself. It called him "the
youngest minister in France" He
was thirty-one.
Twenty years later Louis Bar
thou, Premier of France, passed
O law extending the period of
military service to three years.
One year later the war broke out
and France was grateful to
Barthou.
Today, Louis Barthou, seventy
one, has become for the eighteenth
time a minister of France, this
time minister of foreign affairs
at a moment when many portents
have made many observers com.
pare 1884 with 1914.
Refuses Peace Word
No Frenchman is better quail.
fled to appraise today the pos
abilities of war or peace on this
continent.
He was on the quarterback
when the war storm gathered
two decades ago.
He is again at the diplomatic
helm of France as the horizon
darkens and hurricane flags are
out. He refuses to predict peace.
This time when Louis Barthou,
member of the French Academy,
rich in honors, took an office
that could mean little addition to
these riches but vast addition to
his burdens, he read. not in LIE
Tempts, but in a German ency-
clopaedia that IN. Barthou, by
his passage of the three-year mill
tary service law, was one of those
chiefly responsible for bringing on
the war"
Proud of His Work
The minister, as he sat in the
tapestried workroom Of the Quai
D'Orsay, where his predecessors
from Talleyrand to BRAND have
pondered the problem Of the last
and the next war, said:
"The three-year military law
was not a prOvOcatiOn to war
any more than our present prep
aratiOns to defend ourselves are
prOvOcatiOn to war. 1t was
simple measure of Sef-defenSe.
"On the contrary, am proud
Of having participated in pro-
m0ting a law which perhaps in
the last analysis saved France
from defeat"
French soldiers today serve one
year. The French consider it be-
yond dispute that the Germans
are increasing their effectiveS."
"TOday, Austria is menaced
IN its independence by Ger
many. On the other side, stand
the great powers and the little
entente, insisting on the main
tainance of the independence Of
Austria.
Alarming Note
"The parallel between Austria
and Serbia is disturbing, one
might say alarming. At any
rate it makes it impossible to
predict positively that there will
be no war even in this year
1884.
''But nevertheless I am en-
couraged by one factor to be-
lieve, to cherish the hope that
there will be no war also IN
1884.
81 refer to the latest diplO-
matte note sent the German
government in respect to the
Austrian question from the gov
ernmentS of Great Britain, Italy
and France"
Hitler Wants Peace
Now the little minister straight
ened up in his chair and delivered
his most significant remark:
"If there is one man in the
world who wants peace today, it
is Hitler. What his position may
be in the future, when Ger
many'S rearmament has changed
the feelings of his own people;
what may be the consequences
of internal developments within
Germany, no man can say. But
today think we have to take
the word of Hitler as true
that he does not want war;"
MONDAY - Knickerbocker pre-
SentS the first interUieD "En-
a1oror Ki1n'' Otto heir tn the