Evening Post. TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1924. HERRIOT GOVERNMENT'S PROSPECTS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 142, 17 June 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1924. HERRIOT GOVERNMENT'S PROSPECTS

The vagaries of French politics are hard indeed to follow. In the "dead set" which the Left groups made against the late President they took the extreme and unprecedented course of demanding his resignation before they would accept office '■ — an attitude which involved a "dead set" against the Constitution no less than against M. Millerand, and suggested a remarkable degree of confidence for a party which was still in opposition under almost untried leaders. When a resolution hostile to the President and his stop-gap Ministry had been carried by both the Senate and the Chamber the result was received with thundering cheers from the Left, and their confidence seemed to be justified. Yet almost in the very hour of victory the clouds have begun to gather in an ominous way. The successful issue of the "dead set" has been followed after an interval of two or three days by a setback. Before the Left groups could gather the fruits of their victory the vacancy left by M. Millerand's resignation had to be filled; since it is by the President that in theory the Ministry and in practice the Prime Minister is appointed. Yet after succeeding in ejecting without constitutional warrant a President they did not like the Left have failed in the apparently simpler task of putting in his place a man they wanted, and thus have revealed before taking office a weakness on which some of the prophets are basing predictions of an early grave.

The candidate of the Left Bloc for the Presidency -was M. Painleve, who was Premier during the war, and immediately after the General Election was considered to be again in the running for the But "disliking the prospect of the President being elected with votes from the Right Party" —which presumably means despairing of electing a thorough-going partisan of their own colour—they asked both M. Doumergue and M. Painleve to withdraw in favour of a third candidate. T.hs refusal of M. Doumergue has resulted in the confirmation of their fears. From the shouts of "Vive la Commune" with which his victory was greeted by the Communists in the Chamber one might have supposed that they had helped to put him in, but the demonstration must have been either one of hostility to the new President or of rejoicing at the Government's defeat on the part of a party whose metier it is to be "agin the Government," whatever its colour. The election of M. Doumergue was undoubtedly a victory for moderation and a defeat for the Bloc which, after turning M. Millerand out, had endeavoured to put M. Painleve in Irs place. "A severe blow to M. Herriot and his supporters and not a very good omen for the prospects of the Herriot Government" is reported to be the diagnosis in London.

The possibility of the present Government's soon being "supplanted" by a Briand Government also finds some backers in London. There is an unpleasant suggestion about the word which unfortunately fits the case. The firstmeaning given to "supplant" in the first dictionary available is "to displace by stratagem," and that is likely to, be the process here. M. Briand is on the same side in politics as M. Herriot, and just after the elections the two were mentioned with M. Painleve as competitors - for the Premiership. Though M. Herriot has been the first to catch the judge's eye, the competition is not over. In England under similar conditions M. Briand would probably have had a seat in M. Herriot's Cabinet. In France he remains outside to play a waiting game, in which the defeat of the Government in the 'contest for the Presidency has already given him great encouragement. The personal rivalries of French politics and the rivalries and shifting combinations of the various groups, of which none is ever strong enough to form a Government unaided, make the rapid changes which it is quite impossible for the ordinary foreigner not merely to forecast but even to understand when made. It is a surprise, for instance., to be told that the Socialists have refused to take office under M. Herriot, and the puzzle is only increased when we are informed in the same breath that "the Cabinet is composed entirely of Republican Socialists and Radical Socialists." When is a Socialist not a Socialist? The composition of the Herriot Cabinet supplies two answers—viz., when he is a Republican Socialist and when he is a Radical Socialist. But one does not need to master the distinction between the various stripes of French Socialism in order to understand that ..with a group constituting one-third of the Left majority of about 300 standing out, and with a compact Opposition of 260, the Cabinet's tenure of office may safely be predicted to be "short and stormy."

Though, a weak Government is a serious misfortune for France and therefore for Europe, it is comforting to remember that the differ-

ences which imperil its position relate almost entirely to domestic politics. This does not mean that the rigid Prussianism of M. Poincare's policy in the Ruhr is likely to be continued by the present Government or any other that may sooner or later take its place. On the contrary, the severity of that policy had been not a little relaxed even- before the elections by the fall of the franc, the growing isolation of France, and the Dawes report, and the victory of the Left must, of course, stimulate the process. In the "American Review of Reviews" for May, Mr. Frank H. Simonds thus summarises French opinion on the subject as he found ife during a visit to Paris in April:

Already, as the French reception of the Dawes report showed, France is prepared to surrender economic exploitation of the Ruhr, and to transform her military occupation from an exerted force to an invisible sanction. She asks no more than tho right to keep a certain number of troops in barracks in the Ruhr until Germany pays, to carry on an occupation exactly analogous to the German occupation of eastern Franc© after the war of 1870. And even this demand would, I am sure, be withdrawn, provided there were obtainable a British agreement to join Franoo in active coercion, if Germany again resisted payments, this time under tho Dawes plan.

This estimate fits very closely with M. Herriot's policy as disclosed In the "Matin", interview reported yesterday. A better understanding with the democratic elements in the German Reich and the same severity as that of his predecessor towards the German Nationalists are the points emphasised. A further slight relaxation of the already relaxed Poincare policy is all that he contemplates.