The League of Nations

Monsieur Albert Thomas

ll'HEN.X. Albert Thomas went to Japan recently one of the newspapers said he arrived like a cyclone. He himself has what might be called a -philosophy of explosion ; that is _to say, a carefully calculated moment to break out. To put it in another way, he knows how to _sit on his own safety valve—and when' to get off. It is natural to think of him in tern's, of suppressed or exploded energy. His vitality is immense. His, words have their work cut out to keep on the heels of.. his thoughts. His vivacity is as expressive as his language, and he tells how he was, a success when he delivered an impromptu speech in English to an American audience, but a failure when he read a carefully prepared oration. He says they like to- see him battling with the language—mark the use of the Word "battling." They could see the speech—" action is eloquence."

• He travels everywhere, he meets everybody, he likes to he in 'everything. It would be impossible for him to be satisfied

with any status quo, and his energy is-alwaYs chasing his

. .

bubbling impatience. He is tireless, ubiquitous, irrepressible. He cannot. help" it. There is 'something leonine about his appearance—his large head, his unruly black hair, his shaggy eloquent beard, and his stocky build—but his quick, restless

eyes kill at once any motion of purely leonine force ; that _

would convey- far too restricted an idea of this exuberant personality..

TIIE SERVANT OF AN IDEA.

Among high administrative officials he is probably unique. When the direction of the International Labour Office was 'placed in his hands it must have been obvious to those who knew him and his record that he might either make it or break it. To him it was an adventurous crusade, and he had the imagination to see that it was of little use to enter upon it with a merely Civil Service mind, In any case it would have been .quite impossible for him to do so. It is a fair guess that he has regarded himself not so much as the servant of Governments, as the servant of the idea—or his idea of it— to which the Governments are pledged and he has taken his course, preferring the risk of being enthusiastically wrong to that of being tamely right or negative. Many were daunted at the pace he set, and he certainly assumed a considerable responsibility, but who will say that he has been wrong ?

He has given the I.L.O. life. As it exists to-day, it is his creation more than that of any other man or group of men. He has shaped it and fought its battles, often single-handed. He has refused to allow it or himself to be ignored ; it is largely identified with him as an individual. That is both its weakness and its strength. He pervades it at Geneva and elsewhere ; wherever he goes he is the I.L.O. and means to be. He relates with glee and a certain amount of satis- faction an incident in a Geneva revue where a man made up to look like him is accosted as M. Albert Thomas, and replies that he is one of • M. Thomas' half-dozen secretaries who impersonate him in various parts of the world so that he may be reported to be on the spot in many places at once. It would scarcely be a matter of astonishment if he managed this feat without the aid of the half-dozen secretaries I The essential fact about M. Thomas' directorship is that he applies to official administration the qualities and, to 'some extent, the functions of political life. He approximates more to a Minister than to a director ; his attitude' is governed by his experience as a public man rather than as an official or administrator. A short biographical sketch of him says that the various aspects of his personality as scholar, writer, politician, statesman and diplomat were " synthesized " in the direction of the I.L.O.; that is enough- for any man. If he had not been director of the I.L.O. the office would certainly have been much less prominent in the public imagination.

FRANKNESS AND ENTERPRISE.

Like a Minister he seems to assume responsibility both for the .successes and set-backs Of the Organization which he takes upon himself to explain, or to explain away. He expresses himself with freedom - not only on affairs of his

own Organization but on other political matters of wider concern, and, as they say, he usually "gets away with it." That is one measure of his personal prestige, and one reason for devoted partisanship and critical opposition. He keeps in the dust of the fray and militant objectives are the breath of life to him. His sympathies are frankly with the workers, though he contrives to maintain an equilibrium between his responsibilities to them, to the employers, and to the Govern- ments, who constitute his Parliament. He can irritate and he can inspire ; he has all the weapons in his armoury—tank and rapier, explosives and all the rest of the bag of tricks. He is a man of engaging humour and eloquence, and, like Mr. Lloyd George, if he wants to please, nothing can stop him. He has frequently been compared with Mr. Lloyd George and he does not deny it. But apart from their vivacity, enter- prise and quick wit, the comparison is misleading.

M. Thomas remains a Frenchman ; he has no English prototype and is less like an Englishman than M. Poineare. He is a disciplinarian both in office routine and in policy. He can explode if he comes in early and finds an official not at his post ; he will telephone from Java to give instructions. His astuteness is recognized, his ability is respected, and it is difficult not to appreciate a chief who remembers, as he does, to send cordial Christmas greetings to his staff from the other end of the world. One thing that disturbs those who dislike him is that they can scarcely avoid liking him.

• His personal record is remarkable. The son of a modest baker, he nevertheless succeeded in making his way to the Ecole Normale Superieure, from which he obtained travel scholarships to Russia, Crete, and Asia Minor. He worked as a journalist with Jaures on l'Humanite ; he became Town Councillor, Mayor, Member of Parliament, and Minister ; in 1917 he went to Russia as French Ambassador. He is thus obviously a very full, as well as an intriguing, personality, which is more frequently a subject of dissection, friendly or malicious, than any other in the Geneva organizations. That is not likely to worry him at all. H. R. C.