$45,000 per Hour

French Senators raged last week at French Deputies who seemed bent on scrapping the new budget of Santa Claus-bearded Finance Minister Henri Cheron, that rare old Senator from the Department of Calvados in Normandy where the world's best apple brandy is distilled.

In the Chamber Finance Committee a budget squabble seethed hotter every day. erupted on the Sabbath. Deputies vowed they would not stomach Papa Cheron's proposed $213,000.000 of increased taxes and $208,000,000 of economies (TIME, Jan. 23). French postmen threatened to strike if their pay is axed. French veterans sent delegations to Premier Paul-Boncour pleading the "sanctity" of their pensions. Meanwhile the French Taxpayers' Union threatened a "tax strike" unless just such economies as cutting post-men's salaries and veterans' pensions are made. About the only cheerful message Papa Cheron received last week was from President Albert Lebrun of France. M. Le President, noting a proposal to cut his salary 10%, cheerfully requested that it be cut 10% (to $70,200).

When the Chamber Committee seemed to have made so many changes in the Cheron Budget that it could not possibly balance. Speaker Jules Jeanneney of the Senate rose to hurl an awful threat. He recalled that the President of France, with the Senate's backing, can impose a budget by decree.

"Authority is not to be begged for but to be taken!" thundered Speaker Jeanneney. "The time has come to take stern measures to restore the State's authority!"

As a warning to the Chamber, the Senate by an almost unanimous vote decided that Speaker Jeanneney's speech should be posted up on notice boards in every French city, town and hamlet. Since the budget ought to have been voted by Jan. 1, appropriations and expenditures are now so out of balance that the total French deficit was estimated at $400.000,000 and was said to be increasing last week at the rate of $45.000 per hour.*

*The U. S. budget is going into the hole at the rate of about $200,000 per hour.

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