The Timaru Herald FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 1938 ANOTHER FRENCH POLITICAL CRISIS.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 20983, 11 March 1938, Page 8

The Timaru Herald FRIDAY, MARCH 11, 1938 ANOTHER FRENCH POLITICAL CRISIS.

“I will not let Communists slap my face,” roared M. Camille Chautemps in the French Chamber of Deputies as he left the Chamber to place his resignation with the President, only to be recalled some days later to attempt to form a Cabinet to succeed the well-battered Popular Front Government—a triple alliance of Liberals, Socialists and Communists, having previously weathered the severest crisis of its twenty-months existence. Precipitated by him late in January the political crisis —one of a long series—also was solved by him. From time to time M. Chautemps has been rebuked by the Communists for being unfriendly to Labour and for having failed to give the required push to France's New Deal. But although France under M. Chautemps survived the crisis early in the year, the economic and political situation has deteriorated so rapidly that the Prime Minister in the Chamber of Deputies the other day declared that he intends to ask for full powers to embark upon drastic financial measures otherwise he will not remain in office. The powers demanded of the French Cabinet are designed to be used to rehabilitate the national finances and carry on France’s rearming programme. In a word, the French Cabinet has evolved what it describes as a security programme intended to save France from grave internal disruption. Threats by French Prime Ministers to refuse to continue in office if their proposals are rejected are not new, but the grim consequences of uncontrolled internal troubles confront France on her very frontiers, but it remains to be seen of there is a sufficiently strong sense of public duty to close the ranks of French political factions in face of what might be regarded as a first-class national peril. It will be recalled that the Chautemps Cabinet late in February won the confidence of a fidgety Chamber of Deputies by a vote of 501 to 1. This amazing vote of confidence, which has been equalled few times in French Parliaments in recent years was due largely, the bestinformed observers suggested at the time, to the Cabinet's statement of policy announcing unification of defence activities—Army, Navy and Air Force—under a system of supreme council. Moreover, M. Chautemps promised loyalty to the League of Nations, peace to the world, continued financial co-operation with Great Britain and the United States, social peace and bigger and better armaments for France. It is, of course, manifestly plain that although France may change her political leadership as fancy chooses, her unsolved internal problem will remain to haunt her until the nation faces up to its job.