Pert Question

Chatting amiably and informally last week, Prime Minister Raymond Poincare answered a correspondent's pert question: "Mon cher President* why don't you declare yourself a Dictator? Moi, j'aime les Mussolinis, les Primo de Riveras, les Pil-sudskis!"

"It is plain," smiled M. Poincare, "that a representative government operates less smoothly when it has to lay heavy burdens on its people than when it has only to please them. And France," he added ruminatively, "France has much to bear."

"Then why not a dictator?" cried the correspondent, "it would be splendid! You would be splendid!"

Gravely answered the greatest statesman in France, the savior of the franc, the "Lion of Lorraine":

"I do not think that France will be compelled to abandon her form of govern-ment even temporarily. There are minorities who clamor for it, but they are small minorities. . . .

"Moi, I do not have one hundredth part of the difficulty with the Chamber of Deputies that I once had. We might possibly accomplish some things more easily under another form of government; but I am quite sure that we will be able to accomplish them, without too much difficulty, as a republic, and that we will be glad when it is over, that we remained one through-out."

*Four Frenchmen are correctly addressed as "M. le President":

The President of France

The President of the Cabinet (Poincare)

The President of the Senate

The President of the Chamber.