Briand's Week

With the momentous Adjournment at Geneva behind him (see THE LEAGUE), Premier Briand sped back to Paris. There he resumed his enforced political tightrope walking. (TIME, Dec. 7 et seq.) There he again found himself in anomalous position of being two men at once, politically.

As Foreign Minister, he continued to rely upon a Left majority favoring his conciliatory foreign policy. As Premier, he continued at the mercy of this same irresolute Left majority, which recently overturned his Cabinet (TIME, March 15) because it did not like his financial policy, yet besought him to form another Cabinet, next day, since no one else could do so. Returning from the World deadlock at Geneva to his own National stalemate, the exhausted Aristide told pressmen wearily that there was little to choose between the two. Then he smiled (no one knew why) and metaphorically plunged like a cheerful old walrus into the fearful welter of Chamber debate. Throughout the remainder of the week, his rich cello voice boomed.

Chaos. The Chamber received coldly M. Briand's ministerial declaration in behalf of his Cabinet. Since drastically increased taxation is necessary to avoid national bankruptcy, the Premier was again obliged to prescribe this bitter pill, which the Deputies have so often balked at swallowing. Since the deliberations at Geneva had fallen through, M. Briand could only express the hope that postponement would resolve that difficulty. Since the new Cabinet is merely the last Cabinet revamped, there was little else to say. With this tedious interlude over, the Deputies began again literally to tear one another's hair and rend one another's garments over a "manufactured" issue which they seemed to welcome.

Malvy. Hotheads leaped up and bellowed that the new Minister of Interior, Louis Jean Malvy, was friendly to the notorious Germany spy, Mata Hari, during the War, that he had traitorously sold information to the Germans, fomented mutinies and was even chiefly responsible for the Allied setback at the Chemin des Dames. They demanded to know why M. Briand had included such a man in his Cabinet.* In vain the Government, supporters yelled hack that most of these charges were lies in the first place and that anyhow M. Malvy had expiated whatever guilt was his by submitting to a sentence of exile, until released by the general amnesty. Jeeringly Deputy Ybarnegaray cried: "Since he is so guiltless, why has he never applied for a retrial?" By way of added insult Deputy Barillet shrieked: "In 1917 they executed 25 traitors. Thank God they shot them before the amnesty law was passed! Beware how you reinstate Malvy in the very office which he occupied before he was banished! Chacal! What a jackal Minister of Interior he was!"

While the Right Deputies thus foamed, M. Briand did some quick thinking. Making up his mind, he deliberately goaded them on: "What lies are these! What calumnies! You are seeking still to exploit the War atmosphere of hate and anger! You will not admit your lies are lies because you are politicians!"

Trembling with rage and stumbling in his nervousness, M. Malvy himself mounted the tribune. A slight, dark man with large prominent eyes, his voice was heard only occasionally over roars of "Traitor!" "Chacal!" "Resign!" "Scelerat!" "Pig!" "Traitor-pig!"

Cried M. Malvy: "I was made the scapegoat of our High Command! The High Command knows that the blood of Chemin des Dames is not on these hands of mine! They are clean! I besought you, M. Briand, not to call me into your Cabinet. I told you my enemies would repeat these lies. Gladly I would resign!"

Above the roar came M. Briand's answer: "No! I am not such a coward as to accept this sacrifice. Never! If you resign, I resign! . . ."

Suddenly all eyes returned to M. Malvy. He seemed to totter and to be feebly protesting his innocence with his hand over his heart. Then he shrieked, clutched his left breast and fell in a swoon. He was carried from the Chamber amid genuine pandemonium. He recovered consciousness 20 minutes later, only to faint again. Physicians declared that his weak heart had suffered a shock from which he can scarcely recover for some weeks.

Vote. Meanwhile the Premier and Deputies waxed apoplectic in defending or denouncing M. Malvy. M. Briand's purpose was to bait Malvy's detractors (on the Right) into goading Malvy's adherents (on the Left) into a blind fury, in which they would vote solidly for the Government when the Premier should make a "vote of confidence" out of the Right's demand that Malvy be ousted. The astute M. Briand succeeded. He rolled up a vote of 361 to 164.

It was a worthless enough triumph. It meant exactly nothing as an indication of how the Chamber would vote the next day or the next week. It was one more step along the political tight-rope without falling. M. Briand relaxed over the weekend, snored thankfully during such leisure moments as he could snatch.

The franc reflected the extreme gravity of the situation. It sank to a record low for the past two years: 28.09 francs to the dollar in Paris, 3.51% cents to the franc in Manhattan.

*A prominent Left politician, he was taken in to reconcile the Left for the presence in the new Cabinet of Finance Minister Raoul Peret (Centre) and the dropping of several Left ministers who served in the last Cabinet but were not asked to return.