"Magnificent Innocence"

Big round Premier Edouard Herriot stepped buoyantly up to the high tribune of the Chamber of Deputies in Paris last week. "France!" he cried with appropriate sonority, "France, Messieurs, cannot take the responsibility of permitting the Geneva Disarmament Conference to fail!"

Within five minutes the basso-voiced Premier had the whole Chamber cheering. Gesturing with semaphore swings of his short, thick arms he submitted a brand new French plan, asked for a rousing vote of confidence permitting him to take it to Geneva.

The plan sounded good to almost the whole Chamber. Deputies who might have been expected to speak for half the night cut their remarks unusually short. By 1:15 a. m. the Chamber, which thinks nothing of debating until dawn, had given Premier Herriot precisely what he wanted, a landslide vote of confidence 430 to 20--with 150 "friendly abstentions."

The friendly abstainers, all Deputies of the militant Right, were led by former Premier Andre Tardieu, called "L'Americain" because of his go-gettishness. Last week M. Tardieu turned up for the opening of the Chamber without his usual mustache and wearing horn-rimmed Harold Lloyd lunettes. Correspondents reported that L'Americain "looked more like an American than ever."* The reason pugnacious M. Tardieu & friends of the Right abstained from voting against M. Herriot & friends of the Left was because they interpreted his "plan" as a direct thrust at Germany.

Herriot Plan. In his speech to the Chamber, booming Premier Herriot drew cheers by declaring that the British Government now stands shoulder to shoulder with France in resisting as a sham the German Government's note demanding "arms equality" (TIME, Sept. 26). "They [Germans] pay lip homage to the universal desire for peace," cried M. Herriot, "but their demand is actually for the rearmament of Germany. If the German note itself was not perfectly clear the speeches and interviews given by the German Defense Minister, General Kurt von Schleicher, have left us in no doubt!"

The French Premier's plan (drafted for the most part by French War Minister Joseph Paul-Boncour) is that France should propose to the great powers Six Conditions. In return for their acceptance France would reduce her conscript "Home Army" from 200,000 to 150,000 men by cutting the term of compulsory military training which young Frenchmen serve from one year to nine months. The Six Conditions, which M. Herriot said he would demand at Geneva:

1) That the German Army or Reichswehr, now consisting of 100,000 picked volunteers who must enlist for not less than twelve years, be disbanded and replaced by a conscript army similar to that of France.*

M. Herriot was understood to say that all volunteer armies--such as the British, U. S. and Russian--must also be remodeled on conscript pattern to satisfy France. Later, after he had won his vote of confidence, the Premier explained that the British and U. S. armies are excepted from his plan which applies to Continental Europe only.

2) That "the United States should grant those guarantees of security which she herself has envisioned." This was understood to be a reference by M. Herriot to Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson's recent Manhattan speech in which he said: "Consultation between the signatories of the [Kellogg-Briand] Pact, when faced with the threat of its violation, becomes inevitable." Seemingly the Chamber thought that M. Herriot should get from the U. S. at least a promise to consult and also, if possible, a promise to take armed action against an aggressor state. Next day the State Department told Premier Herriot, through Norman H. Davis who was in Paris last week, how extremely unlikely it is that the U. S. Senate will ever ratify such promises.

3) That an international authority be constituted with the right to investigate the armaments of every nation. (To Germans this looked like a proposal to revive the disbanded and detested Inter-Allied Commission of Military Control which used to snoop around their Reichswehr.)

4) That all European states sign a round-robin pact of non-aggression and of mutual armed assistance against a pact-breaking aggressor.

5) That League of Nations members sign a special pact, pledging themselves to take the punitive action against an aggressor envisioned in Article XVI of the League Covenant.

6) That all nations ratifying the treaty which Premier Herriot expects to issue from the Geneva Disarmament Conference shall bind themselves to accept arbitration of all disputes which cannot be settled diplomatically.

Significance. In his peroration, which drew the Chamber's landslide vote of confidence, M. Herriot declared, "It was not only the heroism of her sons that saved France in 1914 but her magnificent innocence which drew to her aid all the free peoples of the world!"

For several days all the governments of the world hesitated over the Herriot plan last week, keeping officially mum. Unofficially the German Government pointed out through its press spokesman that M. Herriot in proposing to turn the Reichwehr into a conscript army was proposing to break the Treaty of Versailles which forced upon Germany a volunteer army. Any breach in the Treaty, especially by a Frenchman, was so much to the good, the German spokesman declared, but of course the Fatherland would insist on "arms equality" (which M. Herriot had denounced as "re-armament").

In London several thousand "hunger marchers" gave His Majesty's Government their excuse for keeping mum, an example followed by Conservative papers. The Laborite Daily Herald flayed "Herriot's red herring," denounced his Six Conditions as intended to wreck the Disarmament Conference while seeming to assist it. Liberal editors were delighted by M. Herriot's insistence on compulsory arbitration, but on the whole Great Britain's reaction was cold.

First to issue an official statement was the Hoover Administration. In Washington slender. Hawaiian-born Under Secretary of State Castle announced that the Administration's reaction to what he called M. Herriot's "distinct contribution to the problem of arms reduction," is "friendly and favorable."

With President Hoover on the last lap of his re-election campaign, Mr. Castle expressed confidence that somehow or other the Herriot plan will "fit into" the Hoover plan for one-third reduction of the world's armed forces.

Entente? Between his triumph at Paris last week and his expected appearance at Geneva this week, Premier Herriot sandwiched one of the quickest good-will trips on record. As one Socialist & Republican to another, he dashed down to Madrid to felicitate the new Socialist & Republican Government of Spain. When his train stopped at San Sebastian, eleven miles inside the Spanish frontier, Premier Herriot shouted at the top of his voice: "Long live the Spanish Republic!"

Shouted back a Spanish workman, "You are a good man!" Impulsively the Premier reached into his coat pocket, extracted a homely briar of the type which all France calls a "Herriot pipe," tossed it to the workman.

Asked to be specific about the purpose of his visit, Premier Herriot said: "I come here only to salute the Spanish people in the name of France." Suspicious Italians were sure that his real purpose was to build a Socialist-Republican entente between France and Spain. Years ago, when Alfonso XIII was King and Primo de Rivera was Dictator in Madrid there used to be a Fascist-Royalist entente between Spain and Italy. Last week at San Sebastian smiling Mme Herriot was showered with bouquets in which were mingled the colors of the French and Spanish flags.

*In the U. S., Hearstpapers editorialed: "But why necessarily an American? Ramsay MacDonald, Mussolini, Premier Yenizelos, the almost-Emperor Henry Pu Yi, Mr. Litvinov of the Soviets, King Zog, the King of Siam and the Maharaja of Mysore wear 'em. Horn-rimmed glasses have become international. They are still the best first-aid to those desirous of that intellectual look. The real ultra-highbrows, of course, cling severely to a pince-nez with black ribbons."

*In Germany conscription would mean, as it means in France, the inclusion of rebellious Communists and Socialists in the ranks. Nothing pleases German officers more than to know that Reds and Pinks are prevented from enlisting in the Reichswehr (even should they wish to do so) by a "fitness test" which lays quite as much stress on political fitness as on physical.

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