The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.. FRIDAY. MARCH 28, 1924 FRENCH POLITICS.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 75, 28 March 1924, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News , Morning News and The Echo..

FRIDAY. MARCH 28, 1924 FRENCH POLITICS.

For the const that lacks <is»ii<lanee, For the icronp that need* retittattM, For the future in the distance, And ihe good that we can do.

One nation always liuds it difficult to understand the politics of another, for not only arc no two peoples alike in temperament, but no two political systems operate in just the same way. Britain is the mother of Parliaments, but in judging the working of the systems that have been modelled on his own the Briton must make careful allowance for differences between parent and off-

spring. Sometimes, as when he notices that in Yugoslavia 72 parties offered themselves for election, he may well doubt his paternity. What is now happening in Trance draws attention afresh to the difference between the British and French systems. M. Poincarc was defeated on a snap vote on a matter which one of his Ministers had made a question of confidence, and at once resigned. First we may note that whereas only SO deputies were present at the division, 535 votes were cast, a thing which could not happen in any British Parliament. In England resignation would be followed by the King

granting a dissolution or sending for the Leader of the Opposition. In France, however, there is no Leader of the

Opposition. Indeed, there is no Opposition in our senee of the word—His Majesty's Opposition, aa the significant phrase goes. Instead of there being two or three parties, as in England, .there are many, and party divisions arc more or loss fluid. Ministry after Ministry is formed, out of the same combination of parties or groups. It is not the party colour of the Ministry that counts so much as it& personnel, and especially the standing, ability, and record of the Premier. If M. Poincarc is succeeded by somebody else, the interest will not lie, as it would in England, in the change of party in office, but the substitution of one Premier for another. Latest advices are that M. Poincare is not going to stand by his declaration that Jie will not return, but will reconstitute his Ministry. His defeat will give him an opportunity to get rid of unsatisfactory colleagues. These French political conditions produce an instability from which Britain has been free, though the development of the three party system there threatens to diminish the difference in this respect between the two countries. It is very difficult indeed for a Briton to follow the ramifications and changes of French parties. According to the "Manchester Guardian,"' there are, with the doubtful exception of the Socialist parties, no parties at all as we understand the term. "There are loose and

ephemeral 'blocs' for electoral purpoees, ■groups' for action within the House, and beyond these, 'unions,' 'ententes,' and 'alliances,' all cutting across and into each other and bearing for 'the most part hyphenated titles of embarrassing similarity." At last elections 143 Radicals were elected as snch to the Chamber, but only 83 of thnse adhered to the Radical "group"; the rest distributed themselves elsewhere. Only two associations in French politics can well be compared with English parties—the "Bloc National," which was created in 1919 to combat Bolshevism, and the "Bloc de Gaudies," whose war-cry is anti-Clerical-ism and Tax Reform. Englishmen might expect the "Left" to oppose M. Poincare and offer an alternative Government, but 31. Poineare has

actually shown an inclination to put himself at the head of this party. To emerge triumphant from such confusion, to create a majority out of those loose and changing elements, and to keep it, requires unusual qualities, and perhaps these qualities are not all conducive to the display of that statesmanship that Prance and Europe need. M. Poincare has courage and determination. His mind is 'hard, with a cutting edge. He lacks, however, breadth, vision, and sympathy. His resignation is a tactical or strategical move. There has been no indication that he means to give up the leadership; everything has pointed to him going to the country at the forthcoming elections for a • fresh lease of power. He hae suffered several setbacks recently. Frenchmen are no longer entirely satisfied with his foreign policy, and the decline of the franc shook their faith in his domestic policy .as well. He is being opposed in the election campaign by able ex-Ministers, including his predecessor, M. Briand, yet almost, at the eleventh hour fortune has favoured him in the rapid improvement of the franc. What Ills future will be no one at thia distance should be rash enough to predict. If he does fall, Europe will take leave of the man who has been most powerful in tlya shaping of her destinies during the last three years. A *