Laval Entrenched

In the ornate Palais Bourbon, confidence in Premier Laval grew like a great political snowball last week. With his stay-at-home wife and his gadabout daughter Jose both present in the packed galleries of the Chamber of Deputies, pugnacious Son-of-a-Butcher Laval battled for votes of confidence in the major acts of his Government since last July (when the Chamber adjourned) and won triumph after triumph. The final ballot at 3 a. m. was a smash vote of confidence--325 to 150. While no French cabinet is ever secure against upset by the fickle Deputies, M. Laval's series of victories produced predictions last week that his Government will outlast the present Chamber and conduct the French election due next spring.

Less than a year ago even Frenchmen were asking, "Who is this Laval?" Last week the Premier pushed completely out of the Chamber picture Old Brer Briand, his veteran Foreign Minister whose support was necessary to prop up the young Laval Cabinet last spring. In effect, M.Laval reversed (perhaps rashly) the soft-spoken policy toward Germany of his own Foreign Office. When M. Briand last addressed the Chamber applause rose from the Left and Left Centre. When M. Laval spoke last week, the Centre and Right vociferously cheered his words: "We will accept no new Reparations arrangement except for the period of the economic depression! We will accept no reduction in what is due us, save in proportion as a reduction is granted us on the War debts! And we will not consent to giving German private debts priority over Reparations!"

Thus M. Laval, a typical petit bourgeois, nailed his political flag to a popular French policy perhaps impossible of realization. Already the British Conservative Party (an overwhelming majority in Parliament) has served notice that German private debts must have priority over Reparations--in flat contradiction of M. Laval (TIME, Nov. 23). Already the propaganda guns of U. S. and British private lenders to Germany were blazing away last week with the statement in various forms that an attempt to give Reparations priority would destroy the whole fabric of German private credit, bankrupt the Fatherland and defeat its own purpose by making further payment of Reparations impossible.

The world issue of Reparations v. private debts will be thrashed out by committees of bankers soon to meet at Basle and Berlin (TIME, Nov. 30) and ultimately no doubt by a conference of statesmen. Meanwhile, with Aristide Briand, "The Master Parliamentarian of Europe," biding his time, Pierre Laval enjoyed his triumph and explained to the cheering Chamber his more subtle achievements while visiting President Hoover:

"Whatever else resulted, that interview certainly permitted the realization of some useful propaganda for France. In the United States it is no longer believed that France seeks to dominate other peoples. Their people know the sacrifices to which she has consented for the reduction of armaments. She is no longer suspected of wishing to use her resources for aggression. Their people know that all she cares about is her security and that she is resolutely pacific [see p. 15].

"Between public opinion in the two countries all misunderstanding has been swept aside."

P: Crisply M. Laval told the Chamber last week that the French State Railways are running at a loss of $320,000 per day, announced that his Government will soon raise rail fares "and accept debate in the Chamber afterward."

P: To succeed the "Borah of France," Senator Victor Berard, the great Greek scholar who died recently (TIME, Nov. 23), Senator Henry Berenger was elected last week chairman of the French Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee.

Chairman Berenger, former French Ambassador to the U. S., is no academic scholar but a trained diplomatist. He negotiated the present Franco-U. S. debt settlement, on the basis of which the U. S. forgave France 50% of her debt, or $2,016,000,000.

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