May 15, 'THE situation in France created by the elections is not altogether unlike that in England. There is a small left wing majority definitely agauist M. Poincaré and no prospect of his continuing in office. But whoever is called on to form a Government will have to act circumspectly if the administra-ion is not to be disturbed by continual small crises. At this distance and without fuller information, we can form no precise idea of the causes which have led to this result. The most remarkable feature of the elections is the total eclipse of the Extreme Right, the Royalists. Not for many years a numerically powerful party, they were well organized and in certain parts of the country appeared to.be strongly entrenched. Now they are no more. On the other Hand, the Communists have gained nothing, notwithstanding the help given them by high taxation and high costs of living. From these two sign-posts it may be deduced that the French voter is getting back to pre-war normality. In the elections of 1919 the great cry was to save the country from Bolshevism.
Now neither France nor any other Western European country is, we imagine, afraid of Bolshevism any more. Its hid-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.