MILLERAND, ALEXANDRE (1859 )

This article appears in Volume V18, Page 465 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MIC-MOL

MILLERAND, ALEXANDRE (1859 ) , French socialist and politician, was born in Paris on the loth of February 1859. He was educated for the bar, and made his reputation by his defence, in company with Georges Laguerre, of Ernest Rcche and Duc-Quercy, the instigators of the strike at Decazeville in 1883; he then took Laguerre's place on M. Clemenceau's

paper

PAPER
PAPER (Fr. papier, from Lat. papyrus)

, La Justice. He was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the department of the Seine in 1885 as a radical socialist. He was associated with MM. Cleinenceau and Camille Pelletan as an arbitrator in the Carmaux strike (1892). He had long had the ear of the Chamber in matters of social legislation, and after the Panama scandals had discredited so many politicians his influence grew. He was

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

of the Socialist left, which then mustered sixty members, and edited until 1896 their organ in the

press

PRESS (through Fr. presse from Lat. pressare, frequentative of premere, to crush, squeeze, press)

, La Petite Republique. His programme included the collective ownership of the means of production and the international association of labour, but when in June 1899 he entered Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet of " republican defence " as minister of commerce he limited himself to

practical

PRACTICAL

reforms, devoting his attention to the improvement of the mercantile marine, to the development of

trade

, of technical education, of the postal system, and to the amelioration of the conditions of labour. Labour questions were entrusted to a

separate

SEPARATE

department, the Direction du Travail, and the pension and insurance office was also raised to the status of a " direction. " The introduction of trades-union representatives on the Supreme Labour Council, the organization of local labour councils, and the instructions to factory inspectors to put themselves in communication with the councils of the trades-unions, were valuable concessions to labour, and he further secured the rigorous application of earlier

laws

LAWS

devised for the

protection

PROTECTION

of the working-classes. His name was especially associated with a project for the

establishment

ESTABLISHMENT (0. Fr. establissement, Fr. etablissement,
late
- LATE
Norm. Fr. establishement, from O. Fr. establir, Fr. etablir, Lat. stabilire, to make stable)

of old age pensions, which became law in 1905. He became in 1898 editor of La Lantern. His influence with the extreme Socialists had already declined, for it was said that his departure from the true Marxist tradition had disintegrated the party.
For his administration in the Waldeck-Rousseau cabinet see A. Lavy, L'tEuvre de Millerand (1902); his speeches between 1899 and 1907 were published in 1907 as Travail et travailleurs.

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