La Semaine du Parlement

La Chambre des Deputes ?

Stamped, cheered and sat spellbound while Premier Briand delivered one of the most moving speeches of his career, urging ratification for the Locarno Treaties. His words:

"I had the honor to be Premier of France during the anxious days of Verdun, and that terrible massacre filled me with such horror that I swore if I ever again were Premier I would apply my mind and heart and all my forces to avoid the recurrence of such a catastrophe. . . .

"I shall not criticize the Treaty of Versailles. It is a fact. It is what it is. If I had been called upon to frame it, I would say could have done no better. . But I can hear again that tragic dialog which took place when the Chamber was called on to give assent to that treaty! Anxiety for our security occupied every mind. We questioned it. M. Clemenceau was asked would this Anglo-American guarantee hold, for which we had abandoned our natural frontier. We were reminded of certain incidents which showed that, perhaps, America would not, after all, give its approval.

"To that M. Clemenceau answered: " 'I sincerely hope that America will ratify.'

"When we pressed as to what England's altitude would be if the United States failed to ratify, I hear again his tragic answer, his arms stretched out to heaven:

"'Then there will be nothing left.'

"It was from the time these doleful predictions came true . . . [that] I beg.an my work . . . striving to reach a formula of security . . [which] led me to Locarno.

"I will not deny that my first meeting with the German Chancellor stirred mingled feelings within me. ... It was my duty to meet him, however . . . [and] at Locarno we spoke 'European.' It is a new language which all the world must learn! I commend it to you for study, my friends?even if it is not yet certain that the Germans understood it. ... I do not pretend that the Locarno agreement realized absolute security for France. If some one asks me whether this agreement dispenses with measures of security my answer is 'No, it does not.' But if we had not the Locarno Pact, what would be our situation in Europe? If we had nothing more than the Treaty of Versailles, think what guarantees of security we would have. . . .

"Must two valiant nations continue throughout the ' centuries to rise up against each other periodically and must they develop a civilization that is doomed to be trampled upon by armies and crushed and saturated with blood? No. . . . Locarno has given people confidence. It makes it possible for mothers to gaze on their sons without feeling terror for the future. . . . Locarno is a germ that must be carefully tended, and not crushed by the heavy foot before it has time to grow. Such a crime must not be committed by the French foot! . . ."

Amid the ensuing pandemonium, astute politicians predicted with moral certainty that the Deputies would ratify the Pacts by a more than comfortable majority when the vote should be finally taken.

Le Senat?

Proceeded methodically to trim and patch the sadly mangled and inadequate tax bill sent to it by the Chamber. (TIME, March 1.

After a week of drastic emendation the estimated yield of the measure had been increased from 1,600,000,000 francs to 4,985,000,000?still at least one billion short of Government requirements. As expected, the increase was obtained by grafting on the bill Finance Minister Doumer's hated "indirect taxes" (TIME, Feb. 1 et ante) although the Chamber has been refusing for weeks to down this bitter dose. As the week ended, the Senate completed its salvage work and sent the bill back to the Chamber.