"Hypocrite!"

From at least four aspects M. le Senateur Henry de Jouvenel is worthy of remark. He is editor of the great Paris daily Le Matin. He is husband to the superb, the mocking, subtle, obsessing actress "Colette."* He was recently French High Commissioner to Syria (TIME, Nov. 16, 1925 and Sept. 6, 1926). And he has been for some years a leading member of the commission which goes each September to represent France at the Assembly of the League of Nations. In this role, M. le Senateur perpetrated last week a sensation.

Writing in Le Matin, he announced his resignation as a member of the French delegation to the League; and forthwith proceeded to attack its chairman, his onetime chief, Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, a statesman who has been ten times Premier of France.

The question was, wrote Editor de Jouvenel, whether the Great Powers are sincere in their ostensible trust in the League as an agency of international concord or whether they prefer to deal darkly with one another behind the League's back. Such dealing, de clared M. de Jouvenel, has been continuously the policy of Aristide Briand, although that statesman, it is well known, praises the League with high emotional fervor in his public speeches (TIME, Sept. 20, 1926).

Editor de Jouvenel, having thus figuratively cried "Hypocrite!" at M. Briand, concluded:

"If one believes in the League of Nations method, one must practice it. It is not worth while to proclaim its benefits every year during one month only, to return during eleven other months to tactics which failed to avert the World War. That is the reason why I will not go to Geneva.

"If the Great Powers demanded for themselves permanence in the League Council, it was not in order to impose their will on little peoples, but to place their strength at the service of common decisions. When France abandons this conception she is unfaithful to her ideals and traditions as well as to her interests. She is condemning herself to lose her place as leader in Europe.

"She has not the financial or the naval power of Britain, the industrial power of Germany, or even the high birth rate of Italy. Her role always has been to represent the general interest of Europe. She is the cement of small nations.

"If to please this or that nation we consent to take international differences away* from the League of Nations and accustom the Gov ernment to consider that they can escape its judgment, how can we appeal to the Covenant of the League [to avert war] when, between 1935 and 1940, the critical hour, forecast/- and awaited by Mussolini, strikes?"

Briand's Rebuttal. Since M. Briand's enemies have been hurling much harder names than "Hypocrite!" at him for 30 years, the criticism of his colleague, M. de Jouvenel, drew from suave Aristide Briand a honeyed rebuttal in which no fly of irritation lurked.

"I am not, my dear friend, less attached than you are to the League," he wrote to M. de Jouvenel. "It is because of my very attachment to the League that I seek the measure of effort which can be demanded of it if one wishes to serve it with prudence in its own interest and that of peace.

"I believe there is an advantage in treating outside of the League all international differences which can be settled normally by diplomacy before they constitute a real danger to peace. My beliefs on this point have never varied, and I see nothing in recent incidents that can change my feelings."

*Colette Willy, playwright and title-role actress of the ofttime revived play Cheri.

*M. de Jouvenel cited as examples of such "taking away," the recent settlement of the Italo-Jugoslav dispute by a special commission instead of by the League; and secondly the omission of the Powers to act jointly through the League to bring order out of chaos in China. A still more striking instance was the drafting of the Locarno Pacts at a secret conference (TIME, Oct. 12, 1925 et seq.) instead of accomplishing this work by means of the League machinery expensively provided for that purpose.

/-Signor Mussolini recently remarked to the Chamber of Deputies at Rome that he was going to "amuse myself by goading all internal and external enemies of the Fascist regime" (TIME, June 6).

This Il Duce proceeded to do by declaring among other things: "... We must at a certain time be able to mobilize 5,000,000 men. ... We must fortify our navy and make our air force so strong and numerous that its roaring motors will drown all other sounds, its shadow hide the sun over Italian soil. We will be able then, between 1985 and 1940, when I believe there will be a crucial point in European history, finally to make our voice heard and see our rights recognized. . ."