The death of M. Joseph Caillaux was announced in Wednesday's
papers. By an odd coincidence I was on Tuesday evening reading the typescript of a lengthy interview with M. Caillaux prepared for publication in a London paper in, I think, 1917. The
lines of the interview had been set by M. Caillaux himself and represented no doubt what he wanted English readers to believe. The editor of the paper in question decided not to use it, but he sent a copy to the then Foreign Minister, Mr. Balfour. Caillaux will be remembered for four events or facts, among many others. He was the first Finance Minister to impose an income-tax in France. He successfully defended his wife, who had shot M. Cal- mette, the editor of the Figaro, for scurrilous attacks on M. Ca:llaux in his paper. He was charged with treasonable intercourse with the enemy. in the last war and spent three year- s in prison. In 1925, once more Finance Minister, he carried on negotiations on inter- allied debts with Mr. Churchill, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer. Minister of Finance for the first time in 1899, he Was a
link with a completely bygone epoch in French history. * * * *
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