France - New Cabinet

New Cabinet

Last week M. Leon Blum and his handful of Unified Socialist Deputies continued to flaunt their banner with the strange device "OBSTRUCTION!" M. Blum commands less than one-sixth of the votes in the Chamber; his cohorts represent less than one-tenth of the electorate of France. Yet it happens that, by supporting or refusing to support the bloc of Radicals and Radical-Socialists headed by M. Herriot, M. Blum has been able to obstruct and coerce the Cartel des Gauches,*upon which all the recent governments of France have been forced to rely for a majority.

As France drifted last week without a Government following the fall of M. Painleve's Cabinet (TIME, Nov. 30) it was this factor of willful minority-obstruction which threatened to make it impossible for President Doumergue to find anyone at all who could possibly form a stable government.

In so great an emergency M. le President naturally turned first to M. Briand, the national hero among active politicians, "the man of Locarno," already seven times Premier of France. M. Briand accepted the task of forming a cabinet with reluctance, but moved toward that end adroitly. He offered the Blum faction two or three cabinet posts under him; few enough so that they could not dictate or obstruct the policy of the cabinet, yet a sufficient number to make them "responsible" for Government acts and force them to support the cabinet in the Chamber.

This offer did not appeal to M. Blum. He felt that with a little more obstruction he might force President Doumergue to ask him to form a cabinet. He announced that he would support M. Briand only if seven members of his faction were given practically all the important cabinet posts. M. Briand majestically refused so absurd a demand, refused to continue to form a cabinet at all, washed his hands publicly of the whole affair.

Next President Doumergue, presumably at the suggestion of M. Briand, asked the latter's friend, Senator Paul Doumer, to form a cabinet. Senator Doumer has had a long and honorable political career* and has not been greatly embroiled in the recent political struggle. He could come forward without stirring the animosities which spring up about every man recently in power. He might succeed in conciliating Blum. He failed.

One course remained to President Doumergue short of yielding to M. Blum's now publicly announced desire to be asked to form a cabinet. The President could call upon M. Herriot, "leader" of the cartel of which M. Blum was the tail that wagged the dog. If M. Herriot found that even he could not form a cabinet, because he could do nothing with Blum, then perhaps the cartel would split; and the deputies thus released from this stubborn bloc could be reformed by M. Briand, together with deputies from the Right, into a coalition that could command a majority without Blum.

Accordingly, President Doumergue called upon M. Herriot to lick his dog and its tail into shape and form a cabinet. For the third time last week the tail, wagged by M. Blum, wagged on. He would listen to nothing but supremacy for his Unified Socialists. Thus faced with flat insubordination in the cartel, M. Herriot grew furious. After informing President Doumergue that he could not form a cabinet, he rushed to a caucus of his still loyal adherents and had a motion passed approving his refusal to form a cabinet on Blum's terms. This action was widely interpreted as meaning an end to the cartel arrangement.

Finally, M. Briand stepped again into the limelight, while many an observer declared that he had deftly made use of both Doumer and Herriot to split the cartel, When President Doumergue called upon him once more to try to form a cabinet he was ready. After two days of dickering he got together a government, representing a slight swing to the Right from that of M. Painleve, which it is hoped can command a majority without the Blum faction.

THE NEW CABINET:

Aristide Briand Premier,

Foreign Minister Louis Loucheur Finance Rene-Renoult Justice

Camille Chautemps Interior

Paul Painleve War

Georges Leygues Marine

Edouard Daladier Education

Anatole de Monzie Public Works

Daniel Vincent Commerce

Jean Durand Agriculture

Antoine Durafour Labor

Paul Jourdain Pensions

Leon-Perrier Colonies

Great interest centres in M. Loucheur, the new Finance Minister. If he succeeds in stabilizing the fiscal affairs of France, his prestige will transcend even M. Briand's. At present he is popularly known as France's richest man and greatest economist. His great fortune rests upon a pre-War record of sound financial ability, though vastly increased during the War. He has been Minister of Munitions (1914), Minister of the Liberated Regions (for the devastated French War areas) (1922), and Minister of Commerce (1924). Now he has announced that he will summon a consulting board of the chief financial experts of France to advise upon his fiscal program.-

Correspondents who sought M. Briand to learn what the general policy of his cabinet will be received this answer: "Maintenant, je suis la politique! In a day or two we shall make a definite announcement. It will be short!"

*The "Coalition of the Left," made up of the parties just mentioned under M. Herriot's leadership. ^

*He entered the Chamber in 1888, was its president from 1905 to 1906, and became a senator in 1912. In 1897 he was appointed Governor General of French Indo-China. From 1902 to 1904 he headed the Budget Commission. From 1921 to 1922 he was Finance Minister: also 1895-96. He is "self-made" and a bit vain of that fact; boasts that tobacco has never entered his system. ^

*M. Loucheur's advocacy before the Assembly of the League of Nations of both the ill-fated Protocol and a plan for a World Economic Conference is of course well known (TIME, Sept. 28),