A PARIS LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19123, 7 December 1933, Page 9

A PARIS LETTER.

FINANCE AND POLITICS. GOVERNMENT IN DANGER. (From a Correspondent.) PARIS, Oct. '2l. Tt cannot he said that the Government’s Budget proposals have met with a good reception. Criticism was anticipated from the moment, many weeks ago, it became known that taxes j would be increased and that economics : would be effected at the expense of j Government officials, hut Ibis criticism has been rendered unexpectedly severe by actual examination and discussion of tho various measures. The project, ns a whole, described by M. Pierre-Htlenne Flandin, a former | Finance Minister, as "a pot-pourri of N'oo-goeiallsm," has offended the , Socialists because it would Involve , salary cuts, and the politicians of the • Centre and the Right boeaue of the | various devices for extracting more money from taxpayers’ pockets. The I storm of disagreement which has i broken over Chamber and Senate Is rendered dramatic by the realisation that France’s whole financial position I ami the stability of the franc are ; bound io suffer if agreement is not readied. In spile of this there is a conviction in many quarters that M. Dalailler’s Government will not survive the crisis. For the moment everything is uncurtain, and conversations between

j Parliamentary groups are proceeding 1 feverishly. Ry to-morrow night or Monday night the fatal vote will probably have been taken in tiie Chamber, and It will be known whether M. Daladier has inspired a sufficient degree of confidence to carry forward the Budget to the Senate. If the vote is an adverse one France will once more be without a Government, and that at a very difficult moment. Nazis and a Namo. A curious sidelight has been thrown on the excesses of the Hitler regime in Germany by the experiences ! of a French film producer, M. Jean i Benoit-Levy. Assisted by another J talented producer, Marie Epstein, he made a film which they called "La Malernclle," and which is now being shown in Paris with great success. It Is being shown with no less success in Berlin under Hie title of “Mutter j Ilmnle,” but the German billposters | announce that it is Hie work of “Jean ! Benoit and Marie Epslcin." Tim | "Levy" lias been dropped because 1 such a name is so obviously not Aryan, j M. Jean Benoit-Levy is furious, and | he intends to take legal action in I Germany for damans. lie points out j that lie explicitly refused to allow any truncation of his name, which has been born by his family for gencraI Hons. That, lie runs Hie danger of '< suffering material prejudice is proved by a correspondent that "a French film, directed by M. .lean Benoit" Is being widely praised by German critics. M. Benoit-Levy is so mi willing lo have 1 1 is name changed for him in this manner that he lias refused to make a film in Germany be-

cause one of the conditions was that ■ he should work as “Jean Benoit." The French Society of Authors, of which he is a member, has fully approved ol his attitude after examining his case, Doctors on Ralls. It is surprising that hospital trains only appear on the scene In war time. The French State Railway and the Chemins do For du Nord have recently been experimenting with railway I coaches equipped as radiological laboratories, and the scheme is meeting with such success that It is bound to be extended. From the outside these coaches look like, ordinary passenger carriages, but inside they are divided with an economy of space that would delight the lover of caravans Into a walling room for patients, an office in which achlves are kept, dressing rooms, the doctor's office, an "operating theatre” fitted willi all the apparatus required for X-ltay examinations, a photoghaphic dark room, and a tiny laboratory for the analyst. With these coaches it is possible lo penetrate Into country districts far removed from the hospitals of great cilies. All employees of the railway companies can be examined free of charge. In one of these travelling clinics as many as seventy examinations have been made in a single day. Jules Luolen Herrmann, by profession a chef, who lias been arrested at Metz, has confessed to the police dial ho tikes starting fires for the fun of (lie tiling. Since lasl February lie has started more than fifty fires in Melz, ami during last winter he started thirty or so In Nice. In nearly

every case he lighted a pile of In-, flammable material In a cellar or an j attic, and Immediately called the flrev brigade, afterwards making strenuous ffcorts to assist In the extinction of the flames. Ills own explanation of his unusual mania is as follows: —“I .like white wine, and when I have drunk too much of it I love to see a good fire and to watch the firemen at work on it." Apparently the only occasion on which one of the cook's conflagrations caused serious damage was in August, when a fair was in progress in Metz, and the crowds In the streets made it diillcult for him to reach the fire station with his usual alacrity.