M. BLUM AND THE SENATE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 80, 5 April 1938, Page 10

M. BLUM AND THE SENATE

- Germany's seizure of Austria has not ended the struggle between M. Blum and the French Senate. The Senate1, at last advice, still refuses to entrust. M. Blum with extreme powers. Last year the first Blum Government fell because the Senate refused certain powers which (a little later) the Senate conceded to the Chautemps Government. Since then the internal position, and also the external position, have gone from bad to worse. In July of last year, one of the compromise proposals, by which M. Campinchi sought (vainly) to make peace between the Seriate and M. Blum, aimed to

maintain the franc at a level between 112 and 113 to the £, but without exchange control, and within the framework of the Franco-Anglo-American monetary agreement. . • . But today the franc has fallen to 1625, the Germans hold Austria, and still the Senate objects to extreme powers for a Blum Government. As recently as March 25, Paris cabled:

The life of M. Leon Blum's Government was endangered by the Senate, which by 156 votes to 137 rejected his proposal to transfer £24,000,000 from the Exchange Equalisation Fund to the National Defence Fund, on the ground that it would be inflationary. Although the Senate accepted other proposals, Senator after Senator t'gjd M. Blum_that' he had better resign and allow somebody else to carry out the national unity project. M. Blum, replying furiously, declared that he did not Reserve to be treated like .a naughty boy.

It would'need the nerve of a Nero to be indifferent to what is happening in Central Europe and Spain; yet the Senate-Blum checkmate continues.

! Today-, according to time-table, a i new chapter should begin with the introduction into the Chamber of Deputies of a new Financial Bill, by which, it is believed, tlie second Blum Government will stand or fall. What the Senate's attitude to this Bill will be no one knows. "If we were at war," said M. Blum on March 18, "we could achieve unity without difficulty"; but to wait for war in order to secure agreement between the French Senate and the French Government _of the day would seem to indicate a rather serious disproportion between means and end. Even allowing that the French take their changes of Government in a spirit different from the spirit of the English, and that the French possess, under the discordant surface, powerful springs of sudden unity, it yet causes, misgiving among democrats to note that Germany's seizure of Austria found France without a Government, and that the new Premier continues to be the Senate's naughty boy. Today's cablegrams include a statement that the 'Blum Cabinet has agreed on the Bill to be presented to the Chamber of Deputies and to the Senate, and that the Bill authorises the Government to establish by decree measures "for national defence," "measures <lto protect the gold stocks of the' Bank of France, and measures "to carry out the country's financial-economic recovery. Does mis include' exchange Control? Will the Senate again veto? Is it impossible for the French, after recent object lessons,"to re-establish stable internal government, and regain lost influence on the Continent of Europe? ■