Down to Business

Premier Poincare, shrewd psychologist, able politician, has been putting off until the last possible moment the autumn session of the Chamber of Deputies and has thus gained time in which to proceed unhindered with his franc-saving program which has raised the franc from 40 to the dollar to 30 to the dollar, since the Chamber rose (TIME, Aug. 23).

Last week, with only 39 days in which to vote the budget for next year, Premier Poincare convoked the Chamber and demanded that the 58 interpolations on the calender be postponed. Twenty-four of the 58 would-be interpolaters took advantage of the rule allowing them five minutes to explain what they wanted to talk about. Deputy Vaillant Couturier (Communist) screamed: "Mussolini is an assassin!" Calm, Premier Poincare avoided an ''international incident" by pretending that the remark had been addressed to himself. Said he: "We are used to being called names by M. Vaillant Couturier." When the other five-minute harangues were over the Premier moved cloture. . . . Would the Chamber gag itself at his command and get down to business?

Triumph. M. Poincare won cloture by the smashing vote of 365 to 207. That meant that the budget would go through. The Chamber which last spring cut down Cabinet after Cabinet in an orgy of political double crossing has at last come definitely to its senses. The Sacred Union Cabinet of M. Poincare (TIME, Aug. 9) has achieved what was possible to no single faction. A period of uneventful balloting upon the hundreds of clauses in the budget loomed. As an urgent prelude there were introduced before the Chamber last week War Minister Painleve's "economy bills" cutting the French Army from 650,000 to 400,000 men.