The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. MONDAY, MARCH 25, 1940. FRENCH UNCERTAINTY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 71, 25 March 1940, Page 6

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

MONDAY, MARCH 25, 1940. FRENCH UNCERTAINTY.

Kor f fce cause thai lacks assistance, for the wrong that needs resistance. For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

It is unfortunate that France should have to undergo a period of political uncertainty at this grave and perplexing time. In war there is no substitute for strong, government, and under M. Daladier's leadership the Ministry which has just lost office exhibited courage and decision commensurate with its responsibility. But it had been in office for nearly two years—a long time in French politics—and some change was probably inevitable. The French political system permits dissatisfaction with a Ministry to be expressed without the complete overthrow of the Ministry. By some change of personnel, or by a fresh allocation of portfolios, an adjustment is made to meet a change of sentiment in the Chamber of Deputies. So the Daladier Ministry is no more, and has been' replaced by the Ministry of M. Paul Reynaud. M. Reynaud was Minister of Finance under M. Daladier, and M. Daladier is noAV Minister of Defence and of War under M. Reynaud. There is no change in some of the other important offices. But where M. Daladier's Ministry was composed largely of Radical Socialists, M. Reynaud has attempted to make his team representative of the Chamber as a whole. His Ministry's first reception in the Chamber has been lukewarm, partly, no doubt, because Right and. Left in French politics do not easily work together, and do not commonly do so at all except under the spur of emergency. If the war should develop in such a way as to make the emergency clear to all, M. Reynaud's Ministry may live long. One of the most urgent tasks of the new Ministry is to destroy the Communist "white ants," against which M. Daladier took strong measures soon after the war started. In the election of 1936 the Communists polled 1,500,000 votes and elected 74 Deputies. They supported the "Popular Front" Government, and claimed to be the most determined defenders of French democracy against "Fascism" at home and Hitlerism abroad. In this role they enjoyed considerable popularity, but the net effect of their political and industrial influence was to slow down production and reduce France's strength as a military Power, while M. Blum afterwards declared that the Popular Front failed almost entirely because it was undermined by its Communist allies. When' the Nazi-Soviet pact was signed" the Communists were revealed in their true role. They had posed as pro-French; they were seen to be, and to have always been, pro-Soviet. Far from opposing Hitlerism and fighting against aggression, they supported the Nazi "peace offensive." Many of them were thrown into prison, others escaped abroad, but their propaganda has continued and is described as being indistinguishable from the propaganda of the Nazis. In France, as in British countries, they are "the enemy within," and no Government can claim to be conducting the war energetically if it allows their activities, whether overt or covert, to continue.