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Briand speaks in the name of all "les gouvernements alliés unis pour la défense et la liberté des peuples." Briand's second declaration, dated January 10, 1917, is even more fundamentally important. It is a collective note of reply to President Wilson, delivered in the name of all the Allies to the United States Ambassador. The principles therein established are very clearly enunciated.

On that day British troops occupied Bapaume, while the French, whose line we had taken over as far as the river Avre, proceeded to liberate scores of villages between it and the Aisne. On that day, too, by one of the apparent illogicalities of French politics, M. Briand's Cabinet, which had held office for the unusual period of eighteen months, resigned.

Briand's positive achievements are also defended by Jaurès. The recent workingmen's pension law, unlike that of England, demands a direct contribution from the employees. Nevertheless, it contained some slight advantages, and of the seventy-five Socialist members of the Chamber of Deputies, only Guesde voted against it.

Neither Haig nor Pétain had much faith in the possibility of the plan, but Nivelle had persuaded Ribot's Ministry, which had succeeded Briand's in March, and French expectations were raised to a giddy height.

Some of the leading spokesmen of the Socialists are no doubt somewhat more cautious of the form of their statements. But the modifications they would make in Briand's statement would be due, not to any objection in principle, but to expediency and the practical limitations of such measures as he advocates in each given case.

Only six months after the strike, Briand's successor, Monis, with the consent of the Chamber, was bringing governmental pressure to bear on the privately owned railways to force them to take back dismissed strikers.

During February, 1916, M. Briand, the French Premier, was the guest of the Italian Government in Rome, where he had gone with the object the words are M. Briand's "of establishing a closer and more fruitful cooperation between the Italians and their allies."

Both do this doubtless in the belief that by this opportunism they will some day capture the whole party, and that a split may thus be avoided in the meanwhile. Since the Toulouse Congress the divisions within the French Party have become much more acute. Briand's conduct in the great railway strike in 1911 is discussed below.

It was the custom each year for the Thessalonians, the Boys' Literary Society of Washington High School, to give a play in the school auditorium. This year the play was to be a translation of Briand's four-act drama, "Marie Latour." After a careful consideration of the talents of their various girl friends, Gladys was asked to play the leading role and Sahwah was also given a part in the cast.

Yet all through Briand's early political career, Jaurès was his intimate associate, and even after the former had forsaken the party, the latter confessed that, like the typical opportunist, he had still expected to find in Briand's introductory address as minister "reasons for hoping for the progress of social justice." The career of Briand is typical.