THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, June 18, 1937. POLITICAL SITUATION IN FRANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23220, 18 June 1937, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, June 18, 1937. POLITICAL SITUATION IN FRANCE

Once again the French Premier, M. Blum, has demanded and secured authority from the Chamber of Deputies to deal with the financial situation in his own way. The coalition of Left groups, known as the Popular Front, has now been a year in office. M. Blum said himself at the outset of his Premiership that he would require to stay in office for at least two years to complete his " New Deal " programme. His record so far has been one of extraordinary legislative activity. On two earlier occasions he avoided collapse by his conspicuously bold handling of crises. He has done, so a third time, to the extent at any rate of securing the passage of his Emergency Powers Bill in the Chamber, and the Government's prospects of running its full term must be held to be considerably improved in consequence. In his domination of the diverse elements on which he relies for his parliamentary majority and in the remarkable hold he has secured over popular opinion' throughout the country, M. Blum appears to go from strength to strength. Towards the end of February he promised the country a much-needed breathing spell before pushing his programmes of social and economic reforms further. He indicated that there would be a pause in public expenditure, and that steps would be taken to check increases in prices, which were threatening to absorb most of the workers' gains in advanced wages after the amazing series of "sitdown " strikes that followed the inauguration of the Socialist regime. The Government had enacted some seventy new laws in its first two months of office, the most important of which provided more liberal conditions for French workers. Its policy rested largely on credit inflation and generous Government expenditure, mainly through public works. The announcement of a legislative pause was followed almost immediately by one intimating the flotation of a huge loan for national defence, in connection with which the Premier made a supreme bid to secure the co-operation of French capital. He undertook to give security to "big business," which had been seriously affected by the Government's policy of increasing wages and shortening working hours, and to reduce the Budget deficit by a drastic pruning all departmental expenditure. The patriotic: aspect of the loan was stressed, and the Premier's appeal for the cessation of industrial strife, so that the pending Paris Exposition might not. bo threatened, was supported by the President of the Republic. M. Lcbrun, and most of the leading political writers. The loan was an outstanding success, and it was claimed for M. Blum that, he had not only succeeded in ending non-co-operation by French capital, but had actually forced it, however grudgingly, to assist in maintaining the Government in power. Early in May the Premier secured an almost overwhelming vote of confidence in the Chamber after a speech in which he made it clear that no further loan would be floated this year', and that the Government could therefore finance neither largescale public works nor its old-age

pensions scheme by demands on the public credit. He intimated that the pensions proposals, which would cost about £45,000,000 a year, would have to be postponed until financial reform made further funds available. The financial difficulties with which he was confronted, however, are known to be very serious. By the middle of April the Government had spent the major portion of the March loans for defence, and had then to contemplate a prospective cash deficit of over three billion francs. It is said now to be contemplating measures to deal with the revenue shortage and to combat attacks on the currency and public credit. What the precise terms of the Government's ameliorative proposals are we have yet to learn. In getting his Bill through the Chamber M. Blum has at least won the first round.