The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1936. INSTABILITY OF FRANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 20, 24 January 1936, Page 6

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

FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1936. INSTABILITY OF FRANCE.

.For the cause that lacks assistance, For the tcrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, 'And the good that we can do.

M. Laval's Cabinet came into power on tlie same day as Mr. Baldwin's in Britain, but the one has been as unstable, as the other has been strong, and it has long been anticipated that one or other of the foreign or domestic problems with which it has been beset would lead to its downfall. It is reported to be the tenth Cabinet to fall since the elections, less than four years ago, and there appears slight ■ prospect that any regrouping of parties will produce a successor that "will live even a few months. "The gulf between Right and Left," wrote a foreign observer recently, "is. to-day scarcely to be bridged. It has already been realised that the French position to-day manifests unpleasant similarities with Germany's in 1932. The whole country is divided into two enemy camps, which are so heavily armed that it is doubtful how far the Government's power would go if these weapons were put into use." Economic problems have long been acute, and to them there has been added the grave political difficulties raised by the Italian aggression in ! Ethiopia. M. Laval, unwilling (through fear 1 of Germany) to make a permanent enemy of Italy, has been made aware by the parties 1 without whose support his Cabinet could not hold office that he must support Britain and i the League. Hence his vacillation and his attempts to devise a compromise Avhich would j be acceptable to both Britain and Italy. His last attempt, in conjunction with Sir Samuel Hoare, was the "peace plan," Avhich cost Sir Samuel his place in the British Cabinet, and so diminished M. Laval's prestige that his resignation became only a matter of time. The course of developments in Prance now will be watched with anxious interest from Geneva and London, and also from Rome. Discussions as to the practicability of the proposed oil sanctions will be without reality unless and until there is a French Cabinet which will set a course and keep to it. Such a Cabinet in present circumstances could be formed onlj' from parties of the Left, possibly under the leadership of M. Herriot, but civil dissension and the danger of civil strife would then be greater. It is unlikely that the situation will be clarified before the next general elections, which take place in the European spring.