EUROPE IN SHADOW

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 6

EUROPE IN SHADOW

FEAR STALKS FRANCE.

THE GERMAN MENACE,

TORN BY INTERNAL CONFLICTS

(By. WALTER DURANTY.)

111. PARTS, November. French internal politics are conditioned by and depend upon three factors: the fear of war (that is, fear of Germany), the fear of internal strife, and the fear of inflation (that is, loss of savings). Which may seem exaggerated to a foreign observer but which are present and ominous in the mind oi every Frenchman. Parisians in particular have not forgotten the shock of the riots of February C last year, which were caused in no small degree by the Stavisky scandal. To make that memory more vivid the Stavisky trial has just opened here after long postponement. True, it is Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, for the fabulous swindler nut his death last year in Switzerland, self-murdered or murdered as the case may be. Nevertheless, his ..host may \v»ik to trouble France in this hour "of uncertainty and fear; the Stavisky trial can be another Dreyfus case to split France asunder with revelations of political corruption. Or it may misfire or be damped down to become the "cause celebre" of a woman, Arlettc Stavisky, the swindler's widow, like the trials of Madame Steinheil and Therese Humbert. One-party System or Democracy? The prime cause of the existing uneasiness in France—if one may use so mild a term—is the rise of Nazi Germany with its flagrant programme of reducing the Versailles Treaty to a scrap of paper. The success of Hitler— not to mention Mussolini or Stalin—has brought homo to the French, who are nothing if not logical, the advantages of dictatorship and a uni-party system, which can act rapidly and decisively where a democracy is forced to argue and to wait. In the United States and England this inherent weakness of a democratic regime is offset by the powers vested respectively in the President and the Cabinet, or perhaps one might say that it is offset by the biparty system, which enables either President or Cabinet, when appointed by the vote of an assured majority, to act on behalf of the country as a whole. In France, however, there is not one party nor two parties, but a multitude of parties, groups and cliques, whose diffusion —and confusion —has reached such a point in recent years as to make the task of government exceedingly and unduly difficult. Thus at present, for instance, the fate of the Laval Ministry hangs upon the inner politics of the Radical-Socialist parties, which are as divided amongst themselves as any house that somehow goes on standing despite its apparent insecurity. Meanwhile "the" enemy is at the gates"; it is merely a question of time before Germany's rearmament is sufficiently complete for her to challenge the territorial clauses of the Versailles Treaty. Would France Tolerate a Dictator? In this juncture, therefore, it is only natural that France should talk of dictatorship and envy the solidarity of Germany, Italy and the U.S.S.R.. But there are two great obstacles to dictatorship in France: —First, that the mass of the French peopfe does not like dictatorship and woil't have, it; second, that there is no one in France of "dictator calibre, not even a Hucy Long" or. a Father Coughlin, much less a Mussolini, Hitler or Stalin. The dictatorial or uni-party movement, such as it is, is confined to-day to the extreme Right, as expressed by the "Croix de Feu," and its opera-bouffe leader, the Colonel de la Rocque. Once upon a time the Communists had ideas of proletarian dictatorship, but that bold dream has been submerged—at least for the present—in the "United Front," which pledges Communists ah'd the ultra left to vote for the and Liberal Centre, that is to say, for the very political elements which Moscow a few years ago was so passionately denouncing as socialtraitors and social-Fascists. For the time being at least Communism as a possible factor of dictatorship in France has rallied to the cause of democracy. That leaves the so-called "Leagues" or Right organisations, like the Croix de Feu." From their point of view, the trouble is, as I have said, that they are, first, a minority without enough strength to capture power, and, second, that they lack dynamic leadership. The French people on the whole is Leftish to-day and might in a time of crisis accept a dictatorial leader from the Left, as it accepted Clemenceau in 1917, but it would rise and light against any attempt at dictatorship from the Right. That, in point of fact, was the underlying significance of February 0 last year. Thus arises the contradiction in present French politics and the fear of internal strife. Oil one hand is the fact that democracy, as practised in France, has become so diffused and confused as to be almost impracticable, and the fact that there exists an organised Fascist, or dictatorial, movement here. On the other hand, the average Frenchman is | determined to fight, if need be, for the ideals of freedom and democracy. Fears of Inflation. Finally, there is the economic crisis and the fear of inflation. After meeting the world depression more successfully than any other major country, France finally succumbed two or three years ago and to-day feels sick and sorry about it. Paris at present is the most expensive city in the world, with the natural result that the foreign visitors, who played so important a' role in Parisian economies, avoid the city as if it was plague-stricken. The deflation measures and attempts to balance France's revenue and expenditure have lowered wages and salaries, but they have not cut the cost of food. Rents and the price of commodities have been slightly reduced, but to the man in the street, and to the "working masses," as the Russians call them, food is the principal item in the monthly budget. Food prices in France have been held high, somewhat artifically, in an attempt to aid the farmers, who, after all, are an extremely important part of the French electorate. At present, with an election pending »(ih the early summer of next year, if not sooner) no French Government can think of reducing food prices. An easy remedv would be inflation, that is to say. a fuvtiier devaluation of currency. But this meets a new and grievous obstacle in that the French are

a saving race, and that while a devaluation might improve conditions at least temporarily it would at the same time deal a bitter blow to the hoarded francs in the peasant's mattress or the "bas de laine" of the petit bourgeois class, which is so large in this country. The Cleft Stick of " Perplexity." All this sounds -very perplexing, and that is the right word. The keyword of France to-day is " perplexity." They do not know what to dp nor how to do it, yet they feel —with good reason —that .something must be done and done quickly. The Laval Government is neither popular nOr efficient. In some quarters it is suggested that M. Laval is thinking of a monstrous alliance with the Croix de Feu, a sort of hybrid dictatorship, which ■ may be-, possible, because; anything almost is possible these days, but which is about as likely from the standpoint of practical home politics as a solid-and lasting FrancoGerman agreement in the foreign field. Laval's Ministry may be upset next month when the Chamber meets, or it may linger on, less by its own strength than by the reluctance of its adversaries to assume the burden of power. There may be & temporary Ministry, headed by Mandel or someone else, to tide over the period until the elections. Or perhaps even a cutting-the-Gordian-knot solution in the. form of a prorogation of Parliament and a general election before the end of the year. No one kn.ows and it is folly to guess, but in estimating probabilities one may venture to suppose that foreign affairs, namely, the Italo-Abyssinian conflict and the more omV.ms effects of Anglo-Italian antagonism, will prove the determining factor.—N. A. N.A. -