New Cabinet:

New Cabinet

"Two Ministers have served under me with whom I could do nothing; one is Briand, the other Caillaux. One thinks he is Christ, and the other thinks himself Napoleon." Thus wrote not long ago the "Tiger of France," M. Georges Clemenceau.

M. Caillaux, most irrepressible of political Napoleons, joined with that hardy perennial statesman, M. Briand, last week, in the formation of one of the most curious Cabinets yet vouchsafed to France. Briand, as Premier and Foreign Minister, assumed the nominal generalship and resumed his long standing control of the Foreign Office. Caillaux, in the especially-created role of Vice Premier and Minister of Finance, took upon himself the fiscal rehabilitation of France--a task at which he failed notoriously, as Finance Minister under M. Painleve(TIME, Nov. 9). The New Cabinet:

Aristide Briand

Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Caillaux

....Vice Premier and Minister of Finance

Pierre Laval Minister of Justice

Jean Durand Minister of Interior

General Adolphe Guillaumat Minister of War

Georges Leygues Minister of Marine

Bertrand Nogaro Minister of Education

Daniel Vincent Minister of Public Works

Francois Binet Minister of Agriculture

Fernand Chapsal Minister of Commerce

Laurent Leon Perrier Minister of Colonies

Antoine Durafour Minister of Labor

Paul Jourdain Minister of Pension

The strategy of M. Caillaux is evident from a glance at the list of Ministers. They are predominantly Left and Centrist demagogues, offset by General Guillaumat, no politician but a stern and confidence-inspiring commander during the French occupation of the Ruhr.

Unhampered by the presence of tedious experts, equipped with a sizable packet of Left-Centrist votes, and relying, for at least toleration, upon the faction of his youth, the Right, M. Caillaux, super-demagogue, was in a position last week to begin once more in earnest the dance of intrigue, which to him is life.

Caillaux. The continual re-emergence out of disaster of this sly magnetic son of a rich "landed politician," has become a paradox turned axiom in French politics. For example:

In 1910 Caillaux, Bertaux and Deleasse, though they dominated the Monis Cabinet, were deadlocked among themselves as to which should succeed that weakling as Premier. An airplane tumbled out of the sky, injuring Monis, decapitating Bertaux. Caillaux became Premier.

In 1914 Mme. Caillaux (his second wife) shot and killed Editor Gaston Calmette of Le Figaro. It was established that she acted to protect herself and her husband from the publication by Le Figaro of documents tending to demonstrate their mutual moral turpitude at an earlier period and his current civil dishonesty. Though infuriated mobs attempted to lynch them both in the streets, Mme. Caillaux escaped conviction. So abysmal was their disgrace that his few remaining influential friends rushed him out of France on a flimsily concocted "mission" to South America.

By 1916 he had almost convinced the world through ingenious articles widely disseminated in both America and Europe that he was a second Dreyfus, persecuted, misunderstood. Then, almost by chance, the Italian police discovered in a safety deposit box rented by M. Caillaux at Florence an elaborately drafted scheme to overthrow the government of France. At that "Tiger" Clemenceau pounced upon "Napoleon" Caillaux, who, jailed during three years of intermittent trials (1917-20), spent four more in voluntary rustication.

During the last regime of Herriot as Premier (TIME, June 23, 1924, et seq.), M. Caillaux's potent political friends whose personal loyalty to him has been a nine-years wonder, assiduously fostered the political come-back which he made last year by entering the next (Painleve) Cabinet as Finance Minister (the fifth time he had held that office).

There followed, as everyone knows, the unsuccessful Caillaux Debt Mission to the U. S. (TIME, Oct. 5 et seq., NATIONAL AFFAIRS) and his fall with the Painleve Ministry upon his return to France.

Caillaux's Power. So spectacular have been these lurid vicissitudes that the deep tentacles of M. Caillaux's grip upon French politics have attained a certain mysterious obscurity. In the first place a clique of potent bankers unobstrusively support him, convinced that amid his loud philanderings with the Left he has the interests of his own wealth--and theirs--firmly at heart. Secondly, his superb command of every political artifice is very nearly matched by his unquestioned flare for state finance. It is to M. Caillaux that the introduction of the income tax in France is largely due, Lastly it must not be forgotten that M. Caillaux's enemies have been even more tenacious than his friends. Shrewd Jean Frenchman knows that Clemenceau, Poincare and others have tarred Caillaux with a slightly blacker brush than he deserves. At 63 he remains dapper if bold, alert if harassed, a totally unstable political genius.

Program. M. Briand was obliged to abandon his projected "Sacred Union" Cabinet (TIME, June 28) because of the refusal, at the last moment, of M. Poincare to assume the Finance Ministry and thus bring to task of saving the franc the solid support of the Right.

Since Poincare was unwilling to risk his prestige in the Finance Ministry, it was then arranged that he should take the Ministry of Justice, while Senator Paul Doumer (faithful handyman to Briand) resumed the Finance Ministry which he recently resigned (TIME, March 15).

Eventually this arrangement was found to involve too many unstable elements and the whole "Sacred Union" idea had to be scrapped. There remained the last refuge of despair--Caillaux, and another unstable Left-Centrist Cabinet.

Last week Vice Premier Caillaux refused point blank to outline the fiscal program which he intends to follow. Said he: "We must take our time."

Next day it was seen that in taking his time M. Caillaux is no sluggard. He dismissed M. Robineau, the ultra conservative Governor of the Bank of France who has consistently fought the utilization of its gold reserve to save the franc. For M. Robineau he substituted M. Mareau, onetime General Director of the Bank of Algeria, a member of the pro-Caillaux banker's clique. It was expected that he would loosen the purse strings of the Bank of France --a necessity if the present franc is deemed worth saving, and M. Robineau's idea of a new currency based an the Bank's reserve is discarded.

The franc, reacting favorably, moved from 37 to 33 1/3 to the dollar.