Cabinet of Defense

In crisp, determined, confident fashion, Premier Edouard Daladier took his new Cabinet of moderate Left statesmen before Parliament last week, asked a free hand to rule by decree until July 31. This was asking much more than ousted Socialist Premier Leon Blum was refused fortnight ago when his Popular Front Cabinet cracked up. The new Premier was banking last week on a growing realization that the majority of public opinion in France has shifted from the Left part way to the Centre. The disgruntled Left, conscious of their weakened position but eager that it should receive no advertisement last week, finally joined with almost everyone else in supporting Edouard Daladier. The Chamber voted him plenary powers 508-to-12; the Senate followed 289-to-1.

The ministerial declaration--the first in many years to omit mention of the League of Nations--was not even debated, an unprecedented abstention from the time-honored French pastime of heckling every Premier. Apparently the Deputies and Senators believed Edouard Daladier when he told them that French institutions were menaced by nationwide strikes as grave as those in Italy in 1922--to which the answer was Italian Fascism. The moderate Premier, with his reputation for courage and firmness, quietly threw such a scare into even the Communists that their leaders last week began offering cooperation in the settlement of sit-down strikes which had paralyzed the French metal and aviation industries, vital sinews of defense.

After receiving full powers, Premier Daladier at once convened the "Inner Cabinet," which he announced fortnight ago would be the G. H. Q. of his "Cabinet of Defense." Few hours afterward a French Cabinet, for the first time, had issued an ultimatum to Labor that a "humane evacuation" of the sit-down strikers by this week at the latest was desired. This evacuation would be achieved "for the common good," by whatever methods might prove necessary, M. Pierre Jacomet was appointed the Cabinet's special strike arbiter, and within 24 hours 25,000 sit-downers in Government aviation factories were on their feet at work again.

Over the 160,000 other French workers still sitting down the Cabinet while speaking softly, was brandishing a big stick, and by Sunday every sit-downer had stood up, gone home. On Monday union chiefs ordered work resumed Tuesday.

New Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet meanwhile had the French Charge d'Affaires in Rome sign a treaty re-establishing interrupted Italo-French credit relations, then cast about for the right Frenchman to send as Ambassador to the King of Italy and Emperor of Ethiopia. This would mean recognition by France of the Empire carved out by Il Duce.

Paradoxically, two of the most uncompromisingly anti-Communist members of the new French Cabinet, Paul Reynaud and Georges Mandel, were for immediate resumption of those cordial French relations with Joseph Stalin personally which were never so close as when the Premier of France was Conservative Pierre Laval, one of the few foreign statesmen ever entertained by the Kremlin Dictator. With a view to aiding France to gain strength as fast as possible in rivalry with Italy and Germany, the assistance of the World's No. 1 Communist is again wanted by Paris.

Premier Daladier and M. Bonnet, great as their misgivings about the Fuehrer and Il Duce are, were not wasting anytime last week getting in on something similar to the Chamberlain-Mussolini Deal (see p. 16). The French Embassy in Rome, journalists learned in Paris, will attempt to get a Daladier-Mussolini Deal along these lines: 1) Italy and France would agree to halt radio propaganda against each other now being broadcast to the peoples of the Near East and North Africa; 2) the Addis

Ababa-Djibouti Railway, in which France and Italy each have stock interests, would pass wholly into Italian hands by amicable purchase of the French shares; 3) Italian and French encouragement by agents provocateurs of native uprisings in each other's colonies would cease; and 4) France, following Britain's acknowledgement that Italy has certain rights in respect to Palestine, would agree that Italy also has certain rights in respect to Syria, a French mandate. As a preliminary to these far-reaching plans, the Quai d'Orsay this week announced that Premier Daladier and M. Bonnet had "gladly" accepted the British invitation to confer on the matter in London on April 28.

While all this might seem as though France was backing down last week, the whole reason for the immense majorities voted to Premier Daladier was nationwide French confidence that he will resolutely take and maintain the firmest line with Italy and Germany, after first realistically taking losses which France has to take whether she likes it or not.

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