Paris, July, 22, The most comforting conclusion to be drawn from the rapid and spectacular succession of political events in the last few days is that} the French public is at last thoroughly alive to the danger of financial collapse, which has been Jong evident to the rest of the world. When Mf. Herriot came dowa from his presidential chair, entered the arena of the Chamber of Deputies, overthrow M. Briand and Bf, Caillaux and began to form a Cabinet of his own, bets of 2 to 1 were made on the Bourse that, if he succeeded, his ministry would not last 48 hours, and the takers of the dds lost their money.
In polities the fear of the popular vote is sometimes the beginning of wisdom, ang a good many members of the Chamber now see that the time for party combinations and maneeuvres has gone by. They have bacon seared into sense by the spectre of national bankruptey and signs of public anxiety, such as crowds out-the Chamber and the Bourse and street confabulations over exchange rates. They now want a Cabinet of Public Safety—a phrase borrowed from an earlier period of national danger—and M. Poincaré, who was defeated in 1924 because he was the first to ask for large extra revenue, now appears as the one man able to save the situation.
Another interesting sign of evolution is the. petition addressed to! President Doumergue by 230 menibers of the Chamber, in which docu-obtain more reasonable terms. This} is undoubledly the outcome of the movement to which tke final impulse was given by the parade of 20,000 ex-soldiers in Paris on July 11, Hard Lot of Small Employee The alarm caused by the collapse of the national currency is by no means confined to Paris. Tt ha read to the country towns and lages, where people now collect daily at the local banks to read the exchange rates and make comments which show that they apprehend the coming of danger. Most of them are elderly folk trying to live on small pensions or investments, and clerks and shop assistants who have very' little chance of increasing their earnings. They find the cost of living steadily rising with the pound sterling. They began by paying a little more than usual, and then still a little more. This went on until they reached the limit of theft financial resources and had to buy leas. Their portion of meat dwindled, and so did their bread. Hitherto they have not been much interested in questions of polities or finance, and many of them not take the trouble to vote at the last general election. They are now beginning to understand that their existence is bound up with the rates of exchange ang that the more the pound goes up the less they wi have to eat. Many of them are writing to the newspapers to ask if starvation is coming.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.