"Guillotined at Dawn"

Position of France last week when her Chamber did not choose to pay:

National Budget: Drawn to balance at 41 billion francs but unbalanced by a current deficit of 3 4/5 billion francs ($150,000,000), with current revenues running 20% below estimates.

Trade: Exports down 37% below 1931, imports down 32%, with the French trade balance increasingly adverse.

Taxes: No recent major increase but estimated to absorb 30% of the national income, compared to 10% in the U. S.

Unemployment: Quadrupled this year to an estimated total of 2,500,000 of whom 250,000 are drawing the restricted French dole.

Gold Reserve: 2 1/2 billion dollars last week, compared to the U. S.'s 4 2/5 billions and Britain's 1/2 billion.

Thus the $19,261,432.50 which France owed the U. S. last week was a bagatelle which no Frenchman, in the Chamber or out of it, suggested that France could not pay. Matter of fact the exact amount of gold due the U. S. on Dec. 15 had been packed in boxes at Paris several days earlier and arrangements were complete to ship it this week on S. S. Manhattan, Pennland, Europa.

In the ornate French Finance Ministry, after the Herriot Cabinet's fall, an agitated functionary rushed into the office of Finance Minister ad interim Louis Germain-Martin who was hungry and just about to go out to lunch.

"M'sieu le Ministre! S'il vous plait. What disposition shall I make of the gold which is ready pour les Etats-Unis?"

Replied M. Germain-Martin as he struggled into his double-breasted greatcoat, clapped on his derby hat and made for the door, "Enter it on the books as 'deferred, pending the formation of a new govern-ment.'"

"Hoover Destroyed Everything," During the fateful 14-hour Chamber debate which ended at 6:03 a. m., speakers for virtually all French parties voiced in various ways these basic French convictions: 1) that France, against whom Germany launched her major onslaught in 1914-18, is justly entitled to collect from beaten Germany at least as much as France pays to her Allies; 2) that President Hoover, by imposing his one-year Moratorium against strenuous French objections, destroyed what remained of the possibility of collecting Reparations and destroyed it in the interest of U. S. owners of German securities whose investments would otherwise have been wiped out but are now merely "frozen"; 3) that France, though perfectly able to make the Dec. 15 payment (the first due after expiration of the Hoover Moratorium), will not be able to make, over the next 56 years, her total due payments of 6 1/2 billion dollars and might as well balk now as later.

Though Premier Edouard Herriot fought a brilliant Chamber battle, urging payment on grounds of expediency & honor, he revealed his personal feelings in these words which drew loudest Chamber cheers: "It was the intervention of President Hoover which destroyed everything and reopened everything! The Hoover Moratorium cost France far more than the sum we are discussing now. It cost us our title to Reparations."

"Guillotined at Dawn." Connoisseurs of oratory agreed that not since the death of 'cello-voiced Aristide Briand has Europe heard a speech so eloquent and witty, so persuasive and pathetic as Edouard Herriot loosed upon the French Chamber between 2:30 a. m. and the hour when he jestingly said, "My Government was guillotined at dawn."

When Deputy Franklin-Bouillon rushed in waving a telegram and shouting, "Belgium has had courage! Admirable little Belgium has declared she cannot pay!", M. Herriot was ready with an apt retort, even though Belgium's act eventually swayed many Deputies of France.

"I understand," cried the Premier and provoked the Chamber to guffaws, "that the Belgian Cabinet refused to pay and then resigned!" (see p. 13).

"You are going to isolate France!" warned M. Herriot launching into his oration. "Italy is going to pay. Belgium has invoked her incapacity. But we cannot tell the world we cannot pay 480,000,000 francs [$19,000,000]. You are going to ruin our entente with Britain. You are going to prevent our standing on an equal footing with Britain in joint action later on! For 480,000,000 francs, gentlemen, you are going to ruin all that."

Interrupted by Deputy Bracke, his one-time schoolmaster, the Premier squelched his old preceptor thus : "Remember I was your pupil ! You taught me the drama of Socrates in his prison. . . .

"I have often said, 'I love my country' and I hope it will be indulgent toward one of its sons who has dedicated himself to save the honor of the Signature of France. . . . For 14 years [since the Treaty of Versailles] we have in our international life insisted on the sanctity of the written word! . . . Whatever may happen, what ever may be our passions and quarrels, let us remain faithful to the signature given, so that the document signed will not be a 'scrap of paper.' "

As M. Herriot left the tribune dozens of Deputies sprang from their seats to wring his hand, clap his broad back--but soon afterward the chamber voted 4O2-to-187 to reject the Herriot motion for payment. Amid pandemonium the Premier shouldered his way out of the Chamber, followed by his Cabinet and by so many Deputies that adjournment was expected and some Deputies went home. Instead debate was resumed in the gray dawn and at 6:03 a. m. (while M. Herriot & Cabinet were at the Elysee presenting their resig nations to President Albert Lebrun) the leaderless Chamber voted again, this time on a motion jointly submitted by its Finance and Foreign Affairs Committee.

Not in language a motion to default--though it was so in effect--this measure declared that "The Chamber invites the Government to summon, in accord with Great Britain and other debtors, a general conference ... to adjust all international obligations. . . .

"In so far as the payment due Dec. 15 is concerned, the Chamber . . . invites the Government to defer payment Dec. 15. while awaiting the necessary general negotiations."

Compared to the ugly word "default" such terms as "invite" and "defer" are highly attractive. The Chamber, groggy after 14 hours debate, voted 380-to-57 to "invite" and to "defer," then yawned and stumbled off to beds. Dog-tired M. Herriot was already asleep, snored all morning while President Lebrun searched for his successor.

"Pay! Pay! Pay!" For four days after his fall, Edouard Herriot blocked formation of a new Cabinet by stanchly insisting that France must pay. Urged by President Lebrun to resume the Premiership, M. Herriot declined the (for him) plainly impossible task of persuading the Chamber to reverse its vote. He thought that some other man might succeed. The President picked Former Premier Camille Chautemps, Minister of Interior in the fallen Herriot Cabinet.

M. Chautemps, taking his cue from his friend Herriot, went about Paris insisting that France must pay, tried to form a Cabinet on that basis. He raised such hopes in Washington that Congressional leaders were persuaded by the State Department to hurl no speeches at France which might make the Premier-designate's task more difficult. With an effort Congressmen & Senators bottled their spleen. Thus aided M. Chautemps proceeded to--fail. He found plenty of French Deputies rueful over what they had done but no majority ready to pay.

Since France had to have a Cabinet, payment or no payment, President Lebrun finally summoned the sleek, white-maned lawyer who has been M. Herriot's War Minister, famed Senator Joseph Paul-Boncour.

Being a Senator (M. Herriot and M. Chautemps are Deputies), Maitre Paul-Boncour had of course taken no part in the Chamber debt debate. He started with a clean slate. Acting as though balancing the budget and other internal problems should be the chief concern of France he whipped together in 24 hours a Cabinet in which twelve of the 17 portfolios are held by the same men who served in the Herriot Cabinet.

"I have sent a message of homage to M. Herriot, our chief of tomorrow," announced Premier Paul-Boncour handsomely. "My government is a continuation of his government."

This--to put the matter baldly--was no more than a compliment to Deputy Herriot whose support Premier Paul-Boncour will badly need. The new Cabinet is distinctly less liberal than was M. Herriot's. It is a government of the Moderate Centre rather than the Moderate Left. Chief newcomer is Santa Claus-bearded old Henri Cheron who returned last week to the Finance Ministry he held under former Premier Andre Tardieu, go-getting "Man of the Right." Premier Paul-Boncour. frankly a pacifist, turned over his own previous job. War Minister, to equally pacific Edouard Daladier. M. Paul-Boncour took the Foreign Ministry in addition to the Premiership, retained Camille Chautemps as Minister of Interior, and put in Georges Leygues, another "Tardieu man." as Minister of Marine.*

After calling at the Elysee to present formally his Cabinet to President Lebrun, new Premier Paul-Boncour emerged beaming and nattily attired to stroll the gantlet between 200 newshawks of all nations.

"What can be said tonight to the American people," someone shouted, "covering your attitude on the debt problem?"

With a cheerful toss of his leonine head, Maitre Paul-Boncour answered glibly like the great lawyer that he is: "I authorize you to tell the American people that the new government of France over which I preside will do everything in its power to strengthen the good entente between our two nations."

Ducking into his limousine M. Paul-Boncour was gone.

*The Cabinet:

Premier and Foreign Minister--Joseph Paul-Boncour.

Vice Premier and Minister of Justice--Abel Gardey.

Interior--Camille Chautemps.

Finance--Henri Cheron

War--Edouard Daladier.

Marine--Georges Leygues.

Air--Paul Painleve.

Education--Anatole de Monzie.

Colonies--Albert Sarraut.

Public Health--Charles Danielou.

Posts and Telegraph--Laurent Eynac.

Labor--Albert Dalimier.

Public Works--Georges Bonnet.

Agriculture--Henri Queuille.

Commerce--Julien Durand.

Merchant Marine--Leon Meyer.

Pensions--Edmond Miellet.

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