FULL FINANCIAL POWERS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 140, 10 March 1938, Page 11

FULL FINANCIAL POWERS

Demand By M. Chautemps Paris, March 8. The Prime Minister, M. Chautemps, announced that he intends to demand on March 10 the full financial powers which the Chamber of Deputies has already refused M. Blum, and that he is prepared to resign if he is not granted them. The powers asked, he stated, will be used to rehabilitate national economy and carry out rearmament. In brief, they are what Cabinet describes as its security programme, on which it is unanimous. *

The resignation of M. Leon Blum s Popular Front Ministry in June, 1937, was brought about by the refusal of the Senate to sanction M. Blum’s Bill in which full powers“were demanded to deal with the financial situation. The Government demanded an authorisation to take by decrees all the necessary steps to assure restoration of publie confidence and to combat attacks on currency and publie credit. The Bill was passed by the Chamber of Deputies, mainly as a result of the support of the Communist Deputies, who had previously decided to abstain from voting. The Bill was emasculated by the Finance Committee of the Senate, which limited the scope of the legislation to the suppression of speculators and fiscal frauds. M. Blum was under double pressure by the Communists and by the Radicals, and the Senate remained under the domination of the Radical-So-cialists. Being assured of the support of the Socialists, the largest party in the Chamber, M. Chautemps formed a Cabinet, which included M» Blum.