Dans le Parlement

A fight on two important points occupied the French Parliament:

1) Civil Service bonus

2) Disposition of the Morgan loan, made last spring (TIME, Mar. 24).

P:The Chamber of Deputies proposed to give the lesser functionaries of the Civil Service a bonus of 500 francs ($25.00) as compensation for a delay in revising their salaries. The Senate objected. The Chamber insisted. The Senate was adamant. The Chamber sat pat. The Senate weakened, finally passed the necessary bill by a majority of twelve votes.

P:The $100,000,000 Morgan loan was implicated in a convention between the Government and the Bank of France to repay the latter by regular annual installments. According to a convention signed in 1920, the amount was fixed at 2,000,000,000 francs ($100,000,000), but repayment of this figure proved impossible. Finance Minister elemental proposed to repay only 1,200,000,000 a year and this proposal was satisfactory to the Bank.

A bill was drafted to empower the Government to pay these installments as they came due. The Finance Minister proposed to subvert 800,000,000 francs from the budget for this purpose and add 400,000,000 francs from the proceeds of the Morgan loan, which is still intact. Chamber and Senate agreed, but the latter insisted upon adding a clause which prohibited the Government from using the Morgan money for any purpose except repaying the Bank of France, and which stipulated that any residue after the payment to the Bank was to be applied to repaying the banking house of Morgan. The Chamber refused the emendation in the original bill, sent it back to the Senate. The Senate declined to reconsider the matter and sent the bill back to the Chamber which eventually passed it.