Legislative Week

That ardent Communist, M. Le Deputy Pioqemal, pounded furiously upon his desk in the Chamber, last week, thus sounding the familiar prelude to one of his eruptions.

The Chamber had been debating with approval certain changes and relaxations of the bill recently introduced to curb the activities in France of foreign oilmen (TIME, Feb. 27).

In its new form the measure had been shorn of provisions to create a French monopoly of oil vending in France. Deputy Pioqemal, pounding his desk, demanded to know why these provisions had been knocked out. Answering his own question he cried: "I assert that the Cabinet has received and heeded an injunction from America forbidding the monopoly which the people of France have been promised over their oil imports!"

Straightway the Minister of Commerce, suave attorney Maurice Bokanowski, rose to defend the bill. He did not deny that the Cabinet had received protests and intimations from Standard Oil of New Jersey, Royal Dutch Shell and Anglo-Persian Oil. Rising superior to this fact, he cried: "The State does not know the importers! The State is merely anxious to provision the Nation with oil to the best advantage."

After prolonged debate the Chamber concurred in this view, voting 335 to 185 for the bill in its new form. If passed by the Senate, it will leave the Standard, Shell and Anglo-Persian oil firms in virtual dominance of the French market, though theoretically curbed by a new licensing commission with limited powers.

Minister of Commerce Bokanowski is still remembered in Washington, D. C., as perhaps the most broadminded and conciliatory member of the French debt commission which came abortively to the U. S., chairmanned by brilliant but brittle-tempered Joseph Caillaux (TIME, Oct. 5, 1925, et seq.). In France Barrister Bokanowski is not only potent in the councils of financiers but is rated as an authentic patron of the bold, new movement in French art and decoration. Following his tilt in the Chamber over oil, last week (see col. 1), he took unto himself a pen and signed a new trade treaty with Italy, made necessary by the recent French tariff increases (TIME, March 12). France concedes to Italy lower duties on buttons, canned tomatoes, fruits, ventilators and women's hats, etc.; while Italy grants reductions on rabbit skins, precious stones, carpets, cheese, etc.

The recently created National Cinema Censorship Commission had taken no action, up to last week, on any of the 380 U. S. films now awaiting its approval. Since sales to French exhibitors for the forthcoming season are customarily made in April, U. S. film representatives were fuming with uneasiness in Paris, last week, lest the Commission diddle and dawdle until the films submitted to it lose most of their sales value.