FRENCH CABINET

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 November 1925, Page 5

FRENCH CABINET

M. BRIAND’S COLLEAGUES

-Australian and N.Z. Cable Association

PARIS, Nov. 27.

M. Briand was busy this morning with -conferences with a view to forming a Cabinet, but he interrupted the discussions in order to attend a memorial, service for Queen Alexandra at the British Embassy Church. M. Briand’s solution of the financial policy consists of the appointment of a consultative committee comprising eminent financiers, commercial and industrial leaders,.and bankers.

After pourparlers which lasted all day, M. Briand has virtually succeeded in forming a Cabinet, wherein, it is forecasted that in addition to the Premiership, he will take the Foreign Affairs portfolio, and that M. Loucheur will be Finance Minister, M. Painleve, War Minister; M. Georges Eygues, Navy Minister; and M. Leon Perrier’, Minister for the Colonies. ■LATER— The final composition of the Cabinet is announced. It confirms the portfolios as already cabled. It is a coalition of,the Left and Centre parties, including Socialists. The Radicals get, the lion’s share of the portfolios. M.. Painleve’s innovation in dividing the Ministry of Finance between the Ministry of the Treasury and- the Ministry of the Budget has been discarded. M. Loucheur, who is a Radical, will be sole Minister of Finance.

A COOL RECEPTION.

PARIS, November 28.

•M. Briand’s Cabinet contains eleven member®' who were not in the x' am Leve Ministry. ■ It is stated t'hat its proposals will -not be ready until the week-end, when the Government will! expect the Chamber io sit day and night until the Budget is completed. M. Briand and M. Loucheur favour 'a commitfee of experts upon which industry, commerce and finance wdl be represented, in order to control the future policy. 1 _ M. Briand departs from London tomorrow for the signing of the Locarqo Pact. The Briand Cabinet 'had a lukewarm reception from the Right and Centre. Parties. The opinion is expressed! that the Cabinet tends too much to the Left, and- tegret is voiced that M. Bvahd did not form n. Ministry of the National Union. The Socialists are disgruntled owing to their exclusion, while the Radical®, w'ho secured a majority of the portfolios, and some of the most impbriant, would have preferred M. Harriot as Premier. M. Loucheur’s appointment as Minister of Finance was received with considerable reserve. 'His ability is not doubted but his versa'ility is regarded as 'too charnel!ionic. The decision-to create an advisory •'.onimittee under the Finance-Ministry is universally approved. ’• Generally, he parties ar© inclined to wH judgment pending the disclosure of the Government’s financial programme, y>ti whidh the Cabinet, l'kfe its predecessor, will stand or fall.

WHAT IS WANTED.

LONDON, November 29.

The “Observer,’’ commenting on the French Ministerial reconstruction says: “What really matters ■is whether’ the Government will have the courage to impose heavy additional taxation, which alone will remove the financial crisis;-.”-—.-rr--—'’-