Budget and Ultimatum

To chunky Premier Doumergue, Death's visit to his parlor (see above) was the climax to an exhausting week. At long last France saw prospects of a balanced budget, when the Cabinet met with President Lebrun and signed five of the emergency decrees outlined fortnight ago (TIME, April 16) which will pare $264,000,000 from government expenses. BUT the balance will be possible only if France's gigantic army of civil servants and her War veterans agree to accept the projected cuts in salaries and pensions.

France's veterans, realizing the emergency, were considerably more tractable than the American Legion. They accepted the 3% pension cut, but at the same time the National Council of the Confederation of War Veterans served an ultimatum on the Government: The cut must be for one year only, beginning July 1. Before that time the Government must take definite action "toward repression of scandals, revision of the financial markets, repression of fiscal frauds, restoration and reorganization of credit, reorganization of the railways and reform of the State. . . . Otherwise the veterans will impose their own program of national renovation by means within their power to assure once again the safety of the nation."

For weeks all French newspapers have been muttering that political parties of every complexion were arming for civil war, but here was the first official threat to the Government. Premier Doumergue won his point that to balance the budget the pension cuts must be retroactive from April 1, then hastened to comply with other parts of the veterans' demands.

Though only one of the French Railways Chemin de Fer de l'Etat is officially state-owned, all French railways are heavily subsidized, cost the Government between $198,000,000 and $264,000,000 a year. Spurred by Premier Doumergue, Minister of Public works Pierre Etienne Flandin presented a plan last week to cut (wo billion francs a year from this charge by replacing 6,000 mi. of secondary lines by passenger and freight buses and trimming 60,000 employes from the rolls. He further proposed to cut the pay and pensions of all other employes. With luck. this should leave French railroads selfsupporting.

Former Premiers Tardieu and Herriot were appointed a committee of two to formulate a plan to reduce France's abnormally high living costs. Toward the very vital problem of parliamentary reform, Deputy Paul Reynaud, like Gastounet Doumergue long an admirer of the British House of Commons, last week advanced two proposals which were immediately approved by the Parliamentary sub-commission:

1) The President of France will be given right to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies and call new elections, without the approval of the Senate, any time after the Chamber has been in session three months. At present though governments fall twice a week, Mm. les Deputes are elected for four years, cannot be sent back to the country unless the Senate votes approval, which it has done just once since 1875.

2) Money bills now initiated in the Chamber, in the U. S. manner, will in future be presented by the Government for the Chamber's approval, as in the House of Commons, thus halting irresponsible raids on the treasury.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.