The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13. 1934. WHITHER FRANCE?

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 37, 13 February 1934, Page 6

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

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13. 1934. WHITHER FRANCE?

For the cause that lacks assistance. For the wrong that needs resistance For the future in the distance, And the aood that kc can do

For the first time since tlie establishment of the Republic, Parliamentary government in France is seriously threatened. Many observers think the end of social democracy is in sight, and that the Chamber of Deputies may be abolished and the country governed by a Premier with emergency powers. In that case Britain would be left as the only large social democracy in the world. The French deputies themselves have not been unaware of the danger threatening. "Why conceal from ourselves," said M. Flandin, Finance Minister in the Tardieu Government, in a recent speech at Rouen, "that the Republic is menaced, to-day not so much by the attacks of its l'ew adversaries, as by the silent disaffection of the masses?" In exhorting the deputies to pass M. Chautemps' Budget, M. Herriot referred to the übiquitous street posters headed, "Turn out the Deputies!" and admitted that that sentiment was re-echoed throughout the country. Opposite to this movement is the fear of a dictatorship, and apparently both forces were factois in the recent riots.

Many causes have combined to produce this discontent. One outstanding' cause is tlie economic condition of the French people. They are heavily taxed, and yet the Budget remains unbalanced. Drastic measures are called for if the Budget is to be balanced, but no Government has had a clear majority in the Chamber, and the series of Radical-Socialist Governments have had to make concessions to both the Socialists and the Centre to gain support. If they turned to the Left, they aroused the fears of the capitalist class; if they turned to the Right, they met opposition from the workers. The civil servants have refused to_ accept cuts in their emoluments; the workers have staged demonstrations to protest against the existing economic order. French Ministries have had to yield to sectional interests, and have been unable to rule in the interests of the nation as a whole. Like fighting schoolboys, they now await the advent of the master to restore order. If a dictatorship comes, it will not be in the form of Fascism or Hitlerism, a movement from outside, but will be operated by political leaders prominent to-day. The weakness of French Parliamentary institutions is a weakness that threatens democracy itself. Until voters learn to think in terms of the State, and not in terms of their own sectional interests, there will, always be a danger of some form of dictatorship ousting Weak politicians.