"A Bas Moscou!"

Premier Edouard Daladier was put in power last April by the votes of the Popular Front (his own Radical Socialists, Socialists, Communists). The Premier's Popular Front support cracked after Munich. After he broke last fortnight's general strike, it washed out. Nevertheless, Edouard Daladier remained Premier of France. With Socialists and Communists voting solidly against him, with 28 members of his own party and a few others abstaining, but with almost the whole Right coming to his aid in the Chamber of Deputies, Premier Daladier won a respectable vote of confidence: 315 for, 241 against.

It was not the easiest Parliamentary victory a French Premier ever won. Twice the all-day and all-night session seemed on the point of degenerating into a fist fight between Deputies. In one crisis the situation was saved when Edouard Herriot, the Chamber's President, put on his hat and walked out, thus automatically ending the session.

For two hours M. Daladier addressed the Chamber in language that impressed even the reporters. He charged that the Communists had plotted the general strike to shake him out of office, claimed he had police records and Communist manifestoes to prove it. "Its aim,'' M. Daladier said, ''was to bring about the resignation of the government through a popular demonstration. To do that the strike leaders did not hesitate to try to hold up the whole life of the country."

M. Daladier was supported vigorously by Jean Chiappe, former Prefect of Police whose name was considerably clouded by the Alexandre Stavisky scandals of 1934. ''Put Chiappe in prison!" roared the Left. "A bas Moscou!" ("Down with Moscow!") came back to Right.

The Premier, a Wartime infantry captain, declared that he and all other veterans wanted "peace with Germany." "Have I ceased to be a patriot because I defended peace?'' he asked, and his supporters shot back a vociferous "No!" Denying the Leftist accusation that he had dictatorial ambitions, the Premier again rhetorically shouted: "Am I no longer a Republican because I insist upon respect for republican law and order?"

Concluded M. Daladier: "The victory on November 30 was not a personal victory for me, but a victory for the entire French nation. . . . Somebody must save the country, and I will fight to the end to do so."

No less important than the Premier's defense was a long speech by Paul Reynaud, Finance Minister, author of the recent unpopular series of decrees reducing governmental expenses (by cutting public works appropriations and War veterans' pensions) and increasing income taxation. Claiming that France had already benefited by his laws, he pointed out that as a result of the rise in the value of Government bonds, a gain of $352,420,000 had accrued to government bondholders. This showed increased confidence in French finances which was also reflected in the fact that in five weeks Finance Minister Reynaud had been able to reduce the interest on Treasury borrowings from 4 1/2% to 2%.

He thought it was a good sign that there were 560,000,000 more francs in French savings banks during November 1938, than November 1937. In 1936 the Government had to borrow 30,000,000,000 francs to meet its deficit, in 1937, 40,000,000,000. This year M. Reynaud said he would get by with only a 35,000,000,000 franc loan. The Finance Minister summed up optimistically. "We are entering upon an era of rehabilitation of the public finances."

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