On Gold, On Guard

Before he could get Deputies and Senators to go home for the eight-week Easter recess, Premier Pierre Etienne Flandin had to convince France last week that her money and her frontiers are safe.

Parliament had balked when invited by the Government fortnight ago to go home and enjoy Easter. Strong measures were necessary. They were promptly taken by M. Flandin, youngest Premier in French history, most vigorous since Poincare.

Full six feet, four inches tall, Premier Flandin fairly towered over the Chamber of Deputies as he announced a step no other country in the world dare take. The stamping machines in the French mint had been started and were striking out gold "Louis," 100-franc gold pieces slightly smaller than a U. S. quarter. Not since the War has a Frenchman been able to poke a 100-franc bill at the Treasury cashier and get a "Louis."* All France tingled with pride as Premier Flandin categorically declared: "The coining is being hurried and gold coins will be put into circulation with all speed. By the end of this year 1,200,000,000 francs will have been coined in gold."

More than this, the Premier would not say, but it was enough to frighten bear raiders who might have attacked the franc this week, after cleaning up on the belga (TIME, April 8). In Paris rumor had it that Premier Flandin will put gold "Louis" into the public's itching palm only when paying interest on French Government bonds. He might, Paris guessed, make the interest optional, say 3% paid in gold or 4 1/2% in paper, whichever the bondholder elected.

In the French Chamber Finance Committee last week Premier Flandin fought a sharp verbal duel with the No.1 French devaluationist, M. Paul Reynaud, who crowed: "I point to devaluation of the belga as evidence of the soundness of my position. It indicates that the gold bloc countries cannot go on indefinitely handicapping themselves in trade. This morning in Paris I can buy for 92 francs Belgian goods that cost 120 francs before the belga was devalued!"

That situation Premier Flandin handled, as well as he could, by sending France's Minister of Commerce Paul Marchandeau to Brussels this week. There M. Marchandeau will tell Belgian Premier Paul van Zeeland that France, unable to permit Belgium to flood her with goods at devaluation prices, must follow Great Britain in upping tariffs against Belgium. In the French Chamber, despite a croak from No. 1 French Socialist Leon Blum, the Deputies of France voted rousing gold standard confidence in the Flandin Government 410-to-134.

"Every Precaution." This smash vote, which sent Parliament home for Easter, was not obtained until Premier Flandin had also taken measures of extreme seventy to protect France from possible unexpected German attack.

Benito Mussolini has already mobilized over 600,000 Italian troops and militia since Herr Hitler started raising a German conscript army in violation of the Treaty of Versailles (TIME, March 25) Last week M. Flandin decided that French youths of the class which has just finished its military training shall not return to their homes but remain under arms until further orders. Newly trustful of Italy since the Mussolini-Laval accord (TIME, Jan. 14), France withdrew nearly 30,000 troops last week from her mountainous Italian frontier, sent them scurrying cross-country to the pleasant valleys and leafy woods Germans might attack.

Tosh is the popular impression that France has protected herself with a tight-drawn "chain" of steel fortresses against German attack Actually the $150,000,000 worth of steel and concrete forts are "fence-posts," not a chain. This week a horde of French and Moroccan troops is stringing the fence between the posts digging trenches from fort to fort, stringing barbed wire, testing sirens which at the approach of Germans, would scream so loudly that French villagers could hear them for a distance of seven miles and start to evacuate.

Getting down to the business of the next war, France's ever active former Air Minister, double-chinned M. Laurent Eynac chairman of the Chamber's Air Commission, last week declared: "The first objective of each combatant force is to disorganize the enemy's original concentration and mobilization of troops and to demoralize the civilian population. During the first three weeks of each armys concentration the air force will act alone and it may be able by spreading panic, to break down resistance and compel cessation of hostilities."

*But the Bank of France has continued to supply anyone who brought in 169,635 paper francs ($11,196) with a gold bar of like value. Bank of France gold reserves were at an all-time record high last week.

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