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Rh and subsequently entered the diplomatic service as a junior official in the Foreign Office. He was then appointed consul at Tientsin and in 1886 became secretary and charge d'affaires in Paris. When the late Marquess Inouye was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Commerce Mr. Kara became his personal secretary. In 1892 he was appointed director of the commercial bureau at the Foreign Office and was promoted in 1895 to Vice- Minister of the Department. He was sent as minister to Korea from 1896-7, when he again turned to newspaper control and became chief editor of the Osaka Mainichi. Still deeply interested in politics he was one of the right-hand men of the late Prince Hirobumi Ito, when the latter organized the Seiyu-Kai (Liberal) party in Aug. 1900, and subsequently became its leading spirit. From the end of 1900 to May 1901 he filled the chair of the Minister of Communications in the Ito Ministry. Reverting once again to journalism he then became the chief editor of the Osaka Shimpo, and was elected a member of the House of Repre- sentatives for his native city in 1902, being reelected at each subsequent election. In 1906, he definitely abandoned his journalistic career in favour of affairs of State and was appointed Minister for Home Affairs in the first Saionji Ministry. On the fall of this Cabinet in 1908 he spent two years visiting Europe and America. Returning to Japan he accepted the portfolio of the Minister for Home Affairs in the second Saionji administration, which was in office from 1911 to 1912. During the short period of the Katsura administration Mr. Hara held no office, but re- turned to his former position at the Ministry for Home Affairs for the third time under the Yamamoto administration of 1913 to early in 1914. When this Cabinet resigned, owing to the rejection of the Budget by the House of Peers, Mr. Hara retired for a time from active politics, though still retaining his leader- ship of the Seiyu-Kai. The Terauchi administration, which was generally considered to be conservative, came to an end in the autumn of 1918, and Mr. Hara was invited to form a Cabinet which might appreciate the growing desires and aspirations of the people of Japan towards liberalism. On Sept. 29 1918 Mr. Hara, the first commoner to become prime minister of Japan, formed an administration based, for the first time in the history of Japanese political development, on strictly parliamentary principles. He was assassinated on Nov. 4 1921 in Tokyo. HARCOURT, LEWIS VERNON HARCOURT, 1ST VISCOUNT (1863- ), British politician, was born in London Feb. I 1863, the eldest surviving son of Sir William Harcourt (see 12.939). He was educated at Eton and afterwards travelled widely, becoming well known for his interest in art. In 1899 he married the only daughter of Walter H. Burns, of New York. In 1904 he was elected as Liberal member for the Rossendale division of Lanes., retaining the seat until 1917, and on the formation of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Government (1905) became First Commissioner of Works. In 1910 he became Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Asquith Cabinet, but on the forma- tion of the Coalition Government in 1915 again became First Commissioner of Works. In 1916 he was raised to the peerage. He was appointed a trustee of the Wallace Collection, British Museum, London Museum and National Portrait Gallery. HARDIE, JAMES KEIR (1856-1915), British Labour politician, was born at Newarthill in Lanarkshire Aug. 15 1856. His father, a ship's carpenter, was frequently out of work owing to illness and the decline of his trade, and his mother had to go out to work soon after her son was born. Being unable to send him to school she taught him reading herself, and when only six years old he had to earn money as a message boy. A year or two later he began work in the mines and earned his living underground for 16 years, often working 12 and 14 hours a day. At 22 years he was acting as local miners' secretary. After victimization in consequence of a strike he obtained work at Cumnock, Ayrshire, and was shortly afterwards elected secretary of the Ayrshire Miners' Association. Advanced Radical ideas attracted him, and before he was 25 years old he was to the fore in political meetings. He helped Henry George in his land agitation and was a staunch co-worker with Robert Smillie in the miners' movement. At the Trade Union Congress in 1887 he attacked the secretary,

Mr. Broadbent, for supporting capitalist candidates at elections, thus starting the campaign for Independent Labour representa- tion which he brought into prominence in 1888 by contesting Mid-Lanark as an Independent Labour candidate. From this time on he worked unceasingly for an independent political party for the workers. At the general election of 1892 he was elected for S. West Ham and appeared at Westminster as the first Labour member. In 1893 he presided over the first conference of the Independent Labour party and the following year was elected chairman of the party, an office to which he was reelected annu- ally until 1899. In 1895 he had lost his seat in Parliament, but in 1900 he was elected for Merthyr Tydfil. In the great strike in the South Wales coal-field in 1898 he addressed, together with Robert Smillie, huge meetings of miners, and in the general election of 1906 he was reelected to Parliament for Merthyr Tydfil. In addition to his work for the Labour and Socialist movement at home he was one of the most ardent pioneers of international socialism, and visited many countries in his endeavour to bring together the workers of different lands. The collapse of the International on the outbreak of the World War was a great sorrow to him, and is thought to have hastened his death, which took place in 1915 when he had only just completed his fifty-ninth year. HARDING, WARREN GAMALIEL (1865- ), 29th President of the United States, was born at Corsica (then Blooming Grove), Morrow co., Ohio, Nov. 2 1865, son of George Tyron Harding, a farmer and country doctor, and Phebe Elizabeth Dickerson. He studied in the common schools, and from 14 to 17 at the Ohio Central College at Iberia. He taught in a country school for a year, read law for a short time, worked in a newspaper office, and in 1884 became editor and proprietor of the Marion Star. On July 8 1891 he married Florence Kling. Having attracted the notice of Senator Joseph B. Foraker(see 10.628), he was encouraged to enter state politics, and was early recognized as an effective speaker. He served two terms in the Ohio Senate (1900-4), and during the second was influential in securing Senator Foraker's reelection to the U.S. Senate. From 1904 to 1906 he was lieutenant-governor of Ohio, but in 1910, when nominated for governor by the Republicans, was defeated by a plurality of 100,000. In the campaign of 1912 his paper supported President Taft. In 1914 he defeated Foraker in the Republican primaries as candidate for the U.S. Senate, and was elected with a majority of 100,000 for the term of 1915-21; but his friendship with Foraker remained unabated. In 1916 he was delegate-at-large from Ohio to the Republican National Convention, of which he was chosen permanent chairman. In the Senate he was regarded as a " safe " man, who could be relied upon to support orthodox Republican policies. In 1915 he urged " preparedness " for naval defence. In 1916 he voted against the confirmation of Louis D. Brandeis as associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1917 he gave his support to the declaration of war against Germany, and also to all the war measures, including the Selective Draft and Espionage bills. He favoured the death penalty for spies, but after the war advocated amnesty for political prisoners. He opposed the suggested Federal control of food and fuel. He favoured the Prohibition Amendment, and voted for the Volstead Act, enforcing war-time prohibition, over the President's veto. He favoured the anti-strike clause of the Cummins Railway bill, and voted for return of the lines to their owners within a year after the end of the war. He was for exempting American shipping from Panama Canal tolls and also supported woman suffrage. He was opposed to the Covenant of the League of Nations, holding that " either the Covenant involves a surrender of national sovereignty and submits our future destiny to the League, or it is an empty thing, big in name, and will ultimately disappoint all of humanity that hinge its hopes upon it." He voted for the Lodge reservations and also for the Reed reservation that the United States alone should judge whether matters of direct interest to it should be brought before the League; and finally he voted against ratification of the Treaty as submitted by President Wilson. He maintained that Americans should show chief concern for America, and