AFFAIRS IN FRANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22195, 23 February 1934, Page 7

AFFAIRS IN FRANCE

WILL STICK TO GOLD STANDARD / ______ / CONFIDENCE IN NE,W MINISTRY "NOT AT ALL FASCIST" (Special to Dailt Times.) CHRISTCHURCH, February 22. " France will face fully the policy she hag disclosed at the London Conference, and will stick to the gold standard," said Dr E. P. Bemond, Doctor of Laws of the Paris University and a keen student of French political economy, in an interview to-day. This would injure her international trade to some extent, he said, but France before anything else was concerned with her internal trade. The majority of Frenchmen were small farmers. There were about 20 million of them and many lived on fixed interest itom Government bonds in which they had invested. Consequently they had always been opposed to any inflation or any depreciation in French currency, and any Government in France must always be obliged to maintain the gold standard, particularly after the monetary debacle in 1926 when France had lost fourfifths of her currency through tion. France must adhere to the gold standard even with the most radical Government.

Dr Remond, who is a young man, ie a director of Pacific Potash, Ltd., a European firm. He in an interesting personality. He originally intended to study for the French Diplomatic Corps, and for some years was private secretary to various Ministers. However, he wa* interested in law and economics, and he studied at the Paris University, eventually taking his.degree as Doctor of Law. He practised for five years at the Paris Bar before joining the directorate of Pacific Potash, Ltd. ■. • ■ Dr Remond stated that the newly, formed national union Ministry would create a much greater feeling of confidence throughdut the country than, had the previous Ministries that had been in power during the last 18 months. It would govern with the help of" the Socialists, who, though not in the Cabinet, always lent their support except when it came to questions of balancing the Budget. "Contrary to information that has been published the new Ministry is not at all Fascist," declared Dr v ßemond. "It represents different Republican groups in favour of the Parliamentary system. It is a Government that is pretty much on the same lines as the Poincare. Ministry in 1926, when M., Poincare saved the French finances from disaster." ;

Industry in France had been badly hit by the depression, but most of the small farmers had not felt it as much as the farmers in other places; vThey did not use any outside labour, everything being done by themselves. France had her unemployment problem, but it was not of the same dimensions as, in other countriesA They.had introduced a ration system there, each man getting one, two three or four days' work a week; By this means most of the workers were kept in jobs. Where it was impossible to get work a man was given sustenance, but the authorities insisted on the man looking for a job, and if after two or three months he had riot found employment or" had not made any serious effort to do so, he was ignored. Unemployment was attended to by each municipality, and was not a State responsibility si it was here.