Briand Falls

Seasoned political observers united in describing the past week as one of the blackest in the parliamentary history of the Third Republic. Opening with an illusory victory for the conciliatory foreign policy pursued by M. Briand at Locarno, the week closed with the complete sabotage of internal co-operation and even of political common sense. The deputies indulged in one more fling at legislative obstruction and partisan intrigue. They forced the resignation of the Briand Cabinet. They left France without a Government at the very moment when she needed all her prestige in the extraordinary session of the League at Geneva. (See LEAGUE.) They repudiated both Premier Briand and Finance Minister Doumer, who have labored since the first of the year to evolve a finance bill, of any sort acceptable to Parliament, which would produce the revenues indispensable to the state (TIME, March 8 et ante.) As the week closed, an ominous prophecy flew about Paris: "Eh bien! Now we shall have a Dictator or a Soviet or some wizard-demagog like M. Caillaux. Tant pis! So much the worse."

The Victory. Early in the week the long Chamber debate on the Locarno Treaties drew to a close. M. Briand was kept sharply under fire by those die-hard anti-German militarists, the adherents of former Premier Poincare. They could see nothing in Locarno but a delusive bait to seduce France from seeking the armaments and the great military alliances upon which they consider that true security from German aggression must rest. Cried M. Maginot, a trusted lieutenant of Poincare: "We cannot vote for the Locarno Treaty, for it means the disarmament of France in front of Germany, who does not disarm, and because this treaty rests upon German goodwill, of which the least I can say is that I have never seen any proof of it. I only hope time will prove you are right, but I believe you are wrong."

The Premier replied: "From France's rights, nothing has been taken by the compact. We can arm as much as we like without let or hindrance from the Locarno treaty.

"Why do you always think Germany will get everything she wants? Why do you always think you will be in an inferior position? If one sets out to make peace, one must not be afraid of it. And in an accord like this there is always a simple method of avoiding being duped, which is to keep one's strength. We would be very culpable if we did not."

With such left-handed arguments as these, M. Briand championed the peaceful "spirit of Locarno" in words sufficiently warlike for slight mollification of the Poincareists. Finally he delivered a peroration in which he quite bluntly demanded co-operation from everyone. As expected, the ensuing vote was little short of a triumph: 413 for; 71 against; and only an odd 100 abstentions.

Optimism. Although no one supposed that M. Briand could have rolled up such a majority on any issue but Locarno, the political horizon was deemed so clear that President Herriot of the Chamber departed on a visit to Lyons, of which city he is Mayor. The President of the Republic announced his intention of leaving Paris for a few days to open the Lyons Spring Fair. Finance Minister Doumer cabled to London and proposed to resume the Franco-British debt negotiations. An almost ominous optimism prevailed.

The Tax Bill. Back from the Senate to the Chamber came the revamped fiscal measure over which the Chamber has struggled for weeks (TIME, Jan. 11 et seq.) The Senate had imperiously amended into it M. Doumer's drastic "sales tax" or "tax on all transactions," against which the Chamber has long stubbornly rebelled. This time it was hoped that the deputies would realize the desperate need for such a tax, and heed the reproof administered by the Senate in amending the tax into the bill. As the deputies assembled at 10 a.m. late in the week, the Government was conceded to have a strong "fighting chance" of getting a modicum of constructive legislative action at last.

Message. That evening, when the President of the Republic retired, debate on the bill was still under way. The character of the session, although stormy, was such that the Senate made provision for an early session next morning, at which the Senators might reindorse the bill if it was passed and sent to them by the Chamber during the night. At 6:55 a.m. the private telephone of M. le President Doumergue jangled fiercely and roused him from sleep. An excited voice informed him that Premier Briand had made the vote on the "sales tax" clause of the bill one of "confidence"--that the Cabinet had fallen by an adverse vote of 274 to 221. . . .

M. Doumergue leaped from his bed. Some 20 minutes later he received M. Briand, who delivered to him the Cabinet's resignation.

The Significance. Observers noted first that the defeating vote was rolled up by the addition of Socialist and Poincareist ballots to the more or less normal Opposition. M. Leon Blum, the Socialist whip, hit the nail very nearly on the head when he declared: "We Socialists voted consistently against this tax. We have long opposed it and demanded instead a capital levy. But you [the Poincareists] voted out of intrigue and spite!" Yet there was another very interesting circumstance. . . .

Promise? During the week Sir Austen Chamberlain, the British Foreign Secretary, had been virtually forced by British public opinion to abandon any intentions which he may have had of supporting Poland, at Geneva, for a permanent seat on the League Council (see LEAGUE) . Many Frenchmen believed that M. Briand had obtained a promise of this support for Poland from Sir Austen in order that France might slip her Polish ally into a new Council seat, which would balance that about to be accorded Germany. Suddenly Sir Austen found himself unable to keep his promise, if he ever made it. Concurrently there appeared the possibility that it would be better for M. Briand's prestige if he "fell" and so was spared the necessity of trying to exact the keeping of a now impossible bargain.

Sleeper. As Sir Austen Chamberlain rumbled toward the Gare du Nord, Paris, on his way to Geneva, a man was observed asleep in a motor car parked near the Nord station. A tired smile faintly curved his lips as he slept and a cigaret burned ever nearer his finger tips.

The exhausted catnapper was M. Aristide Briand--for the eighth time an ex-Premier of France. When Sir Austen's train actually drew in, the indomitable Aristide was on the platform, ready to slip an arm into that of his British friend. Later they left for Geneva together by the same train. M. Briand made it clear, however, that he would not attend the formal League session but merely the far more important preliminaries.

President Doumergue postponed all steps toward a new Cabinet over the weekend, went out and opened the Lyons Fair, as he had promised. Later he returned with M. Herriot.

Later Briand returned too, after an exhausting 72 hours at Geneva. He found Paris bubbling with desire that he succeed himself, reform the cabinet. He said he would refuse. "They have broken the dish on my head," he said, "and now expect me to pick up the pieces." He repeated that he would refuse. He conferred with President Doumergue and still said he would refuse. But the pressure was increasing. With a cabinet drawn slightly more from the Left than last time, he could save the day. He still refused, but his friends gave him little rest--little rest for tired Aristide Briende, eight-time French premier.