The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 1934. FRENCH SCANDALS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 12, 15 January 1934, Page 6

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

MONDAY, JANUARY 15, 1934. FRENCH SCANDALS.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance For the future in the distance, And the good that ise can do

The repercussions of the Stavisky frauds in. France add another to the many Parliamentary scandals which have chequered the career of the Republic. Popular fury lias turned on many Ministers and members of the Chamber, and allegations have been made that the funds of the party now in office were enriched by payments made by this Russian Pole. Even the police have been accused of complicity. It certainly seems extraordinary that Stavisky, who had a long criminal record, including trafficking in drugs, cheque swindles and receiving stolen goods, should have received police approval, and it is asserted that he had powerful friends, in the force, especially in the Prefect of Paris, the national head of the police. Even the Prime Minister has been of having been concerned in assisting the criminal.

The disquieting feature of the scandal is the support it has given to the French belief in the venality of legislators. A similar proof was given at the time of the Panama affair, which has never been forgotten. The J rench people had subscribed fifty millions sterling for the construction of the Panama Canal, and in 1892 it became known that most of the money had disappeared. M. de Lesseps, who had undertaken the work, and others were put on tx-ial, and the suicide of a well-known financier, closely connected with the Panama Company and with leading politicians, caused a wholesale denunciation of Ministers, senatois and deputies. The Prime Minister ordered the prosecution of two of his colleagues in the Cabinet, and though they were acquitted, the incident showed that the first Minister of the Republic believed that the political society in which he lived was sapped with corruption. It was said that a hundred deputies and senators were implicated, but only eleven were prosecuted by the Government, and of these only one was convicted and sentenced. It was generally felt that the real criminals were being screened, and only minor offenders weie being prosecuted. The French people have always been more suspicious of their rulers than the English. The cry of "We are betrayed!" has been heard all too often in Paris. Such scandals as the present one strengthen this suspicion.

In the Humbert frauds, when Madame Humbert raised large sums of money on the strength of a locked safe said to contain £4,000,000, there was little suggestion of political corruption, but the fact that she was able to raise large loans from wealthy financiers on the strength of a safe which, when #pened, contained only a single button, shows a certain gullibility in the French people which has doubtless played its part in making the path of the fraudulent more easy. In Britain there have been many financial scandals, but they have not affected politics. The Government- has remained free from suspicion. This, thinks the most eminent of British interpreters of France, is one of the benefits of the party system. In France there are only small groups, and opportunism often takes the place of principle. Also, there is a high ethical code in British Parliamentary life which has often been lacking in France.