Waiting for action

France has a full government. It has not happened to her for a long time. This government is radical socialist; it could not be more radical socialist. That is understood. But it is a government. It is better than the anarchy of the last fortnight. And no one has found a way to provide us with a better one, for some time.

This crisis that we have just undergone has shown us how wise was the old English lady whose portrait was drawn by Robertson's Method, for beginners when her dinner was burnt, this optimistic miss thought of those who are without bread, and found her fate preferable; when her dress faded, she found herself very happy to have, at least, this old garment to wear. One day, however, in a snowstorm, suffocated by the wind, frozen with cold, for a moment, she almost complained. But, immediately, she pulled herself together: "It is better," she said, "than no time at all." "The radical government is a bad time to get through, but it's better than no government at all.
And so, we have a brand new head of state and a new president of the Council.

The President of the Republic was part of the ministries Combes, Viviani, etc. That's true; but what does the German press think? That "his election, for sure, does not mean a new orientation of French policy: Treaty of Versailles, occupation of the Ruhr, maximum amount of reparations, such will be, writes the Tag, the directions of this policy". This compensates for that.

Mr. Herriot has no unified socialists in his radical-socialist Cabinet. It is not his fault since he had engaged them to share power with him. Mr. Léon Blum rejected the invitation and promised the support of his party, in view of the program letter that the leader of the radical party had addressed to him. But Mr. Herriot, in his offer of collaboration to the fierce opponents of the occupation of the Ruhr, proclaimed that his party did not believe "it was possible to evacuate before the guarantees provided by the experts had been constituted."

The new President of the Council has just given proof of the sincerity of this belief. He has called General Nollet to war. A general to war The Cartel of the Left must have shuddered. Are there no more stockbrokers? And this general is the one who is least likely to believe in the establishment of peace by the disarmament of France. He has just returned from Germany. He chaired the Control Commission. For months, he has struggled against the ill will, coupled with cunning, of the recalcitrant vanquished. He has practiced the Germans and knows them. He knows them to be resistant to persuasion, and must not believe that the League of Nations and the Tribunal of The Hague are sufficient to ensure our security.

When Mr. Herriot, deafened by the singers of the Internationale, seems on the point of yielding to the dreamers of fraternity, General Nollet will ask him to remember his Greek tragedies and will remind him that there are enemy brothers... Mr. Herriot has, of course, given this meaning to the support that General Nollet gives him, and last night, at the Pelit Luxembourg, he expressed to the press the hope that "Germany will not be mistaken".

We would like to find in the Cabinet other names as reassuring as that of the new Minister of War. Mr. Clémentel will, it seems, be well received by financial circles. But the presence of more than one of the other members of the government seems likely to delight especially the committee of the Rue de Valois. Deputies of the minority, they showed in the dispute a fire that foreshadows a singular ardor in action.

Public opinion will be surprised to see the radicals return to the system of multiple portfolios, reinforced with briefcases of under-secretaries of state. Are the savings that were demanded "from above" all winter no longer in season this summer? Are the Marin report going to be burned in place of the strike? A dozen and a half posts instead of eleven! Why not one more? Did Mr. Herriot not think of an under-secretariat for the high cost of living? Or was he afraid of not finding a nineteenth ministerial candidate? ...

But, without bias, let us wait for this Cabinet to act. It could have been the same, without the warning of the 515 votes of the National Assembly having resounded above the victorious Cartel. Let us be patient.

Henri Vonoven.