SILL TO BE FACED

Dunstan Times, 2 November 1936, Page 2

SILL TO BE FACED

BLUM'S DIFFICULTIES PRESSURE BY COMMUNISTS M. Blum’s Government has now carried out the greater part of its original programme, which was the maximum the moderate elements of the 1 rout Populate ” would concede and the minimum the more advanced parties (Socialists and the Communists) would accept, wrote Alan Houghton Brodnck in the ‘Daily Telegraph’ before the devaluation of the franc. Ihey aie, therefore, probably coming to those things about which there are clineiences of opinion among the motley team which makes up the Cabinet s suppoitG1 France is still in the throes of an economic crisis ol the first magnitude when elsewhere all over the world tlieie are clear signs of recovery. The technical ability of M. Vincent Auriol, France’s Minister of finance, and that of his collaborators, has secured some months’ respite on the exchange and Government bond markets, but there are signs that this lull will soon be broken. The Government has to find about 20,000,000,000 franc before the end of the year. It is difficult to see where the money is corning from without devaluation or “Spifflevy. Napoleon used to look at the rentes quotations to find out non things were going on, and now, m spite of judicious official support, the Fienci rentes are 30 per cent off par. The “ Baby Bonds ” find the public unenthusiastic and largely unresponsive.

RISING COST OF LIVING

The Frenchman is a past master in the art of tax evasion and it needs more than the wheedling and threats of the Government to make mm bring back his holdings from abroad. Exports fall steadily and the commercial deficit is piling up at the rate of over 9,000,000,000 francs a year The weekly fall in the gold stock of the Bank of France—about 180,000,000 francs—is, curiously enough, just about the amount of the adverse trade It is significant that the majority of the workers who went on holidays with pay in the northern mdustna belt crossed the frontier this year and spent their holidays in Belgium for then francs buy twice what they do m France where the cost of living is still rising. It cost 10 per cent, more to live even in May this year than it did in May last year, but since the strikes and the legislation which followed them mices have soared. They are now anything from 40 pea- cent, to 60 pr cent, over world prices and—at any rate for foodstuffs—France is the most expensive country in the world to-day if one excepts Russia M. Thorez, the able and popular Communist leader, says that French prices are only 10 per cent, oi 12 pci cent, above those in other countries, but he is, no doubt, thinking of prices in the U.S.S.R. . „. , , The Spanish Civil War has afforded an opportnnpity for worrying the Government which has not been let slip by the extremists of the Left. It is a secret for no one that the decision to make a declaration of neutrality was come to after severe opposition on the part of several members of the Cabinet.

GROWING PATRIOTISM

Socialists and Communists have been touchingly patriotic of late, and M. Thorez took the opportunity of the visit to France of the Chief of the Polish General Staff to write an article ending with the words u Vivo hi I oJogne.” . T _ . , Horror inspired by Herr Hitler induced the Communist leader to write thus, and also made him address a letter to M. Blum soundly trouncing him for daring not only to receive, but to have luncheon with Dr Schacht. This letter may mean the beginning of the end of co-operation between the Socialists and the Communists. It also means that Stalin warns M. Blum that the Franco-Soviet Pact is a living reality. Unless M. Blum is able to find some support from the Right he will have a very difficult time when he goes before the" Chamber. Most of the Bills which were forced through Parliament in record time became law with the sullen disapproval of the Senate. That august body was coerced into voting many measures under the direct menace of popular revolt, and the conscript fathers have made up their minds to take their revenge when they judge that the time is ripe. The Senate is still dominated by the Radicals and Socialist Radicals, and in the ranks of these parties are to be found most of the leaders of the politically powerful French Freemasonry. In these circles it is thought that when the summer holidays are over the average man will realise that the economic and financial situation is getting worse and worse. The ‘ People’s Front ” will no longer make the semi-mystical popular appeal it still does to-day, and the time will have to come to call a halt. The word has gone round to stand by

MAJORITY OF THE LEFT

At the elections lust May the combined parties of the Left only polled 500,000 more votes than the parties of the Right, and there were 1,300,000 electors who did not vote. The Communists and Socialists together did not poll a third of the votes cast. The Communist danger in France is a real one, the more so because it is largely unsuspected by the French themselves. Tho Government has “ purged ” the higher ranks of the army and shifted a certain number of judges, but this has not. satisfied the extremists, who know that as long as (ho key positions in the State are in the possession of the supporters of the established order even a general strike might not be tho harbinger of the millennium.

Tho Government still keeps Paris full of mobile guards, which shows that it is realised that even if tho police is mostly “ Front Populaire ” it needs some stiffening. The first attempt at a general strike, which was set for dune 11, did not come off, but doubtless there will be other attempts. As the Communists practically control the Government they are in a position of privilege, and do not have to carry on so much noisy propaganda to advertise themselves. They

cau devote their energies to really constructive work, and this they are doing day and night. There is possibly a certain amount of clandestine arming of the “ cells ” going on. Lenin wrote: “ Any sacrifices must be made and any uses employed, any stratagems or illegal methods jadopted in order to get into the trade unions, to remain there, and there to accomplish the Communist task.”

FIVE MILLION MEMBERS

The Confederation Generate du Travail is supposed now to have o,UUU 5 UUU members. Its Secretary-General, 1 1 • Jouhaux, has become one of the most considerable personages in the country, although nothing in his career or character leads one to suppose that he is particularly fitted to play an important political role. Everything points to the fact that the French Communists are following Lenin’s injunctions. In spite of all the effervescence of the urban strikes, the root of much of the trouble in France lies in the agricultural situation. Karl Marx wrote that the social history of mankind turns on the fundamental antagonism of town and country. _ The price of bread is fixed all over France by official decree. he free market price of wheat a little while ao-o was 110 francs a bushel, as against a°world price of 100 francs. Ihe new “Wheat Board” which has just been se t up—the sixteenth attempt in six rears to regulate the wheat market has now fixed the price at 140 francs just 40 per cent, over world prices. The wheat harvest is poor. Its quality in some parts of the country has been further worsened by premature and hasty storage, caused by fear of strikes among the farm labourers, who have been sedulously, if largely unsuccessfully, tackled by the Communist agitators. The farmers will, it is calculated, receive 4,000,000,000 francs more for their wheat this year than last year, and the prices of other cereals and of meat, milk, and other produce are to be raised. The increased prices paid to the farmer will mean still higher prices paid by the ultimate consumer and an increase in the price of everything the farmer has to buy.

PEASANTS’ DISCONTENT

In any case, for the present, the rural population is still very discontented, and there is an ominous delay in the payment of rente and taxes. The prices of agricultural produce have fallen 50 per cent, in the last five years, and everything the peasant has to buy costs more. The consumer has not benefited by the fall in prices. Milk is sold at 1 franc 20 a litre in Paris, but the peasant in Normandy gets 38 centimes for it; between the farm and the Paris table, therefore, the milk increases in price 300 per cent, and more. The rift is widening between the town workman of Communistic tendencies and the intensely individualistic peasant. The rural population of France is still about 45 per cent, of the whole, and to this proportion must be added the inhabitants of the smaller towns who share the point of view of, and have much the same interests as, the peasants. France is a country with few large towns, and the relative poverty of her soil in minerals has kept her largely agricultural and has thus been a blessing in disguise. The people in the smaller towns, although radical enough iu their opinions, both social and political, are far from Communist, and Communist propaganda has, up to now, been almost powerless against them.

M. Blum’s Government is looked at rather askance by the peasants. The famous “ revalorisation ” of the produce of the earth had better come quickly, for the peasants, although they move slowly, arc beginning to form themselves into syndicates which will enable them, if they sec fit, to starve the country into acceding to their claims.

Analogies ami comparisons between different lands are always misleading. France is not at all like Spain. “ Front Populaire ” is one thing and “ Frente Popular ” is another. No doubt it would suit the French Communists to sco a Soviet regime in Spain, but they are not simple-minded enough to think that France would, of necessity, follow suit. French good sense and moderation will assert themselves, and it will probably be seen that in spite of, or perhaps because of, M. Blum’s New Deal, the new France is very like the old.