Aristide Pontius Pilate

Premier Briand made it evident last week that he considers the program of taxation put forward by his friend, Finance Minister Doumer, superior in every way to that formulated by the Finance Committee of the Chamber at the behest of M. Herriot, leader of Le Cartel des Gauches. At the same time he tacitly admitted that the Cartel has rallied and gained sufficient internal unity to make it almost impossible to force the Briand-Doumer measure through the Chamber. Confronted by this annoying impasse, the astute M. Briand decided to make the gesture of Pontius Pilate while at the same time continuing at the helm of France. Briefly he "washed his hands" by declaring that the Chamber must decide whether it wanted the Doumer plan or the Cartel plan. At the same time he blazoned abroad that whichever plan the Chamber chose, he would not consider its vote as implying either "confidence" or "lack of confidence" in the Government but merely as an indication of "preference." Politicians were aghast at this high handed flouting of the precedent which would ordinarily demand the resignation of the Briand Cabinet upon the rejection of M. Doumer's plan. Meanwhile M. Doumer appeared before the Finance Committee of the Chamber and told its Cartellist members that their plan was the work of bunglers who knew not the intricacies of state finance. He openly defied them: "Take care, my friends! Your measures will not produce the revenue which you expect. We shall run into danger, unless you bring to the Treasury important sums of which there is immediate need. France will treat with severity those who lead her into another phase of inadequate taxation followed by inflation and ultimately by disaster!" The Significance. Financial experts noted that the Doumer scheme rests squarely upon the single principle of "indirect taxation" (taxes to be paid in the form of a disagreeable little stamp every time anybody buys anything): the 3,800,000,000-franc "taxes on business transactions." Such taxation is relatively easy to enforce, and of course sure to be extremely unpopular. Hence the virtual "impossibility" of getting it voted. The Cartel measure is a much tinkered proposal. It sets out to scrap M. Doumer's unpopular "indirect taxation"; and proposes instead that great pressure be applied to the collection of the present "direct taxes"--the notoriously "uncollectable" income tax, etc. Then it turns about and tries to levy "indirect taxes" on the rich-- the securities, luxury and automobile taxes. Next it straddles by increasing the postal rates, which affect all classes. It resorts to such highly experimental measures as trying to see whether the Government can step in and seize one-third of every estate--a sheer impossibility where the "estate" is literally in the stocking of a tight-fisted French peasant family. Finally it proposes to save 150% more in Government expenditures than the experts of M. Doumer believe possible.

M. Briand's Apologia. Late in the week, the grizzled Aristide, picturesquely "under the care of his physicians," boomed forth portentously as from "the brink of the grave": "I have reached the age when emotions are forbidden me. I must avoid all excitement which would be prejudicial to myself or to Parliament. . . . There are some who think I am clutching power. But they are wrong. I have no personal object or ambition. I am seeking only to prevent a Government crisis. . . . "Therefore, I have resolved upon this throwing of governmental responsibility into the Chamber. . . . It is for the head of the Government [i. e., Briand] to decide the opportunity and the efficacy of such a method."

Politicians smiled, tongue in cheek, at this declaration that the fiery Premier cannot endure the "excitement" which is in reality his natural milieu.

Developments. Much excitement arose during the week over the avowed intention of the Cartel to "screw down" the income tax, not only upon Frenchmen but upon foreigners resident in France as well. Lurid despatches stated that a U. S. citizen, resident in France and having a U. S. income of $1,000,000 a year, would have to pay $800,000 of it to the French Government in addition to his U. S. income tax--the total tax, of course, being thus greater than the income itself! Speculations along this line continued until someone informed the Cartel tax tinkerers that according to the Franco-U. S. Consular Convention of 1853 France may not tax U. S. citizens more heavily than the U. S. taxes French citizens. Since the U. S. does not tax foreign residents upon incomes derived from their native countries, the Cartel's ambitious proposal fell to the ground. French stockbrokers added to the general nervousness by carrying through a one-day strike against the Cartel's proposed tax on securities. The lords of the Paris Bourse said in effect: "We shall close the Bourse and operate at Brussels, as we did once before, if the Chamber attempts to tax us unjustifiably."