gradually fixed prices and brought supplies under control, in regard to almost all articles of food except vegetables. Thus he eliminated profiteering in food-stuffs. He also carried through a great decentralization in the administration of his office. But he will be mainly remembered as the author of the system of compulsory food rationing, which was carried out with absolute fairness and impartiality, putting an end to the queues waiting at butchers' and bakers' shops that had rendered the house- keeper's life a burden. As Food Controller, Lord Rhondda ran the biggest trading organization that the world had ever seen. The turnover of his Ministry, apart from the work of the wheat and sugar commissions, amounted to 1,200 millions sterling; with them 2,733 millions sterling. Supplies never failed, and in spite of the German submarine menace there was no hunger in the United Kingdom. His strenuous labours affected his health, and in April 1918 he tendered his resignation; but his work was so invaluable that pressure was put upon him to remain, and he was created a viscount. But the strain was too great. He was attacked by pneumonia and died on July 3. Tributes to his work and to the public loss sustained by his death were paid in both Houses of Parliament.
He married Sybil Margaret Haig, a cousin of Lord Haig, who survived him. They had one child, a daughter, who married Sir Humphrey Mackworth, and who succeeded to the viscounty of Rhondda under a special remainder. (G. E. B.)
RHYS, SIR JOHN (1840-1915), British archaeologist and Celtic scholar, was born in Cardiganshire, the son of a yeoman farmer, and educated at the Bangor Normal College and Jesus College, Oxford. In 1877 he was elected professor of Celtic at Oxford, the first occupant of the newly created chair, and he
held that post till his death. In 1895 he became principal of
Jesus College. He was Hibbert lecturer in 1886, Rhind lecturer in
archaeology at Edinburgh in 1899 and president of the anthropo-
logical section of the British Association in 1900. He also served
on several royal commissions and was knighted in 1907. He
died at Oxford Dec. 16 1915. His published works include
Lectures on Welsh Philology (1877); Celtic Britain (1882, last ed.
1904); Celtic Heathendom (1886); Studies in the Arthurian
Legend (1891); Celtic Folk-lore (1901); as well as editions of
Welsh texts (with J. G. Evans); The Welsh People (with D. B.
Jones, 1900), and numerous other papers and studies of Celtic
inscriptions and literature. For his work on the Arthurian
legend see 12.300, 321, 669.
RIAZ PASHA (1835-1911), Egyptian statesman (see 23.281), died June 18 1911.
RIBOT, ALEXANDRE FELIX JOSEPH (1842- ), French
statesman (see 23.285). On Jan. 3 1909 M. Ribot was elected a member of the French Senate, and in Feb. of the following year
was offered, but refused, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in the
Monis Cabinet. After the formation of M. Poincare's Govern-
ment on Jan. 14 1912 he took the place of M. Leon Bourgeois as
president of the committee appointed to deal with the Franco-
German treaty, the necessity for the ratification of which he
demonstrated. In 1913 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the
presidency of the Republic, and on the fall of M. Barthou's
Government was invited by President Poincare to form a Cabi-
net, but refused. In 1914 he became, with M. Jean Dupuy,
leader of the Left Republican group which refused to accept the
decisions of the Radical Socialist congress at Pau in Oct. 1913.
On June 9 1914 he became prime minister and Minister of Jus-
tice, but his Government was bitterly assailed by the Radical
Socialists as well as other groups, and only lasted one day.
With the outbreak of the World War M. Ribot's great repu- tation as an expert in finance and foreign affairs brought him effectively into office. On Aug. 27 1914 he became Minister of Finance in M. Viviani's Ministry of National Defence, an office which he retained when, on Oct. 28 1915, M. Briand succeeded M. Viviani as prime minister. On Feb. 7 1916 he visited London and held a conference with the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Treasury. When Briand reconstituted his Cabinet, in Dec. 1916, Ribot retained the portfolio of Finance. On the fall of the Briand Ministry (March 17 1917) President Poincare again
called upon M. Ribot to form a Government, and this time he consented, himself taking the portfolio of Foreign Affairs in addition to the premiership (March 19). In the statement of his policy made to the Chamber on March 21 he declared this to be " to recover the provinces torn from us in the past, to obtain the reparations and guarantees due to France, and to prepare a durable peace based on respect for the rights and liberty of peoples." On July 31, in a reply to the German Chancellor Michaelis, he admitted that in 1917 an agreement had been made with the Tsar to erect the German territories on the left bank of the Rhine into an autonomous state, but denied that there had been any question of their annexation to France. His Government resigned office on Sept. 7; but he accepted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Painleve Cabinet constituted six days later. He resigned office finally on Oct. 16, owing to the violent criticism of his refusal to fall into the " trap " of the German peace offers.
RIBOT, THEODULE ARMAND (1839-1916), French psychologist (see 23.286), died in 1916.
RICHARDS, THEODORE WILLIAM (1868- ), American
chemist, son of the artist William Trost Richards (see 23.299),
was born at Germantown, Pa., Jan. 31 1868. He was educated
at home, at Haverford College (S.B. 1885), Harvard (A.B. 1886;
Ph.D. 1888), Gottingen, Leipzig and the Dresden Technical
School. After passing through the various grades of promotion
he was appointed professor of chemistry at Harvard in 1901
and was made director of the Wolcott Gibbs Memorial Laboratory
in 1912. He was best known for his researches on atomic weights,
of which he revised over a score, including that of radioactive
lead. The results were generally accepted and for his contribu-
tions he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1914. He also
gave much time to physicochemical investigation, especially
concerning electrochemistry and chemical thermodynamics,
piezochemistry and surface tension. Of these his contributions
to atomic compressibility, to the relation between the change of
heat capacity and the change of free and total energy, and to the
thermodynamics of amalgams have perhaps been the most
noteworthy. In 1907 he was Harvard exchange professor at
Berlin, and in 1908 Lowell lecturer. He was president of the
American Chemical Society (1914), the American Association
for the Advancement of Science (1917) and the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences (1919). He was a member of the
National Academy of Sciences and of most of the European
academies. He received hon. degrees from Yale, Harvard,
Haverford, Pittsburgh, Clark, Pennsylvania, Oxford, Manches-
ter, Christiania, Prague and Berlin. He was awarded the Davy
(1910), Faraday (1911), Willard Gibbs (1912), and Franklin
(1916) medals. He was made a member of the National Research
Council in 1916.
RICHBOROUGH, a port on the left bank of the mouth of the Stour river, Kent, England, ij m. N. of Sandwich, created by the Government during the World War as a base for the expedition of materiel to the armies in France and Flanders. The port was planned in June 1916, primarily to relieve Dover of this class of transport. The site chosen consisted of an expanse of marshland through which the Stour flowed as an insignificant
stream. The work of construction was under the control of the Inland Waterways and Docks Section of the Royal Engineers, and involved the reclamation of a large tract of swampy foreshore, the widening and deepening of the waterway, the construction of a wharf and jetty nearly a mile in length equipped with powerful cranes and of docks for the building and repair of certain kinds of craft, the erection of acres of hutments and store-sheds, and the laying of some 50 m. of railway sidings. The work was rapidly pushed forward, the workers at one time numbering 20,000; and eventually a self-contained cantonmen. arose, having its own postal, police, lighting and other services.
The base was operated in a comparatively small way at first but developed into an undertaking of gigantic proportions. At the outset, steamers and barges were used to convey the war material across, until the French ports became congested; then special barges were introduced to take goods direct into the
