April 16.
'A. section of France under the Vichy, government is desperately trying to save from the wreck the remnants of what was conce termed French glory." That glory has been sadly shattered. It stilt exists. There wre two factions which claim the credit for ts continued existence, the one which hopes by compromise and political adoitness to save what they can; the other, that which is deter mined to overthrow the menace to France which is at present triumphant by the same force of arms which has temporarily humbled the nation, To the one faction it seems all important to preserve the few square miles of territory on the European continent which still remain to them; to the other, the in~ spiration is the preservation of the sou) of France, compared with which the square miles metropolitan France are as nothing. To) the former the old idea of military warfare takes precedence, 'The conqueror is the party' which manages to overrun the enemy's ter~ ritory, To the latter, the war of movement mote important. Tt does not matter how many square miles of territory ate given up, provided the soul of the nation is preserved. 'The mere soil, the buildings and factories which have een Tost, are nothing as com= pated with the magnificent inspiration, born' of centuries, that this soil, these factories, fave merely' symbols of something much uxeater—they are the expression of the spirit of the people. That spirit is much more worth fighting for than geographical boundaries The present government in Vichy are learn {ing {00 Tate that there are more ways of conquest than one, It is not easy to conquer miles of enemy territory, when a resolute foe] fs opposed to the invaders. So much the! Germans learned through their terrific losses in the Battle of France. But it is a com= paratively simple matter for the invader to. impress upon those who believe that their cause is lost, because so many square miles of their country have been taken, that what remains to them is not worth holding. That is what the Germans are doing at present in France, They are playing upon the out-of-date concept that it is land that matters, and all the while making the possession of that land more and more worthless, Of what use is a fertile country unless it can provide those who Lil it, those who work in its factories, land those who believe in it with the wherewithal to tilt it, to work its factories, so as give some well-founded reasons why all should believe in it, in spite of all appear-tunees? Here are some cogent facts which prove that the Vichy government is not xtiving and cannot give any such reasons.
'The Bank. of France is now pursuing a course very similar to that which it took in 1928, before the inflation of the frane. Since last' June it, has advanced to the Vichy Government no tess than eighty-five milliard franes, a5 a direct result of the German ocetipation, which requires the Vichy government to pay at the rate of 150 milliards of frames. a yoar—whieh is half the total budget fof the country normally, even though now it is deprived of its usual sources of revenue from taxation and borrowing. From the fact that the Bank of France has ceased to publish the figures of note circulation, it can be taken that the difference is being met through the printing press, Indeed, the Germans, who fave not likely {0 exaggerate in respect of a fallen foo, state that the circulation of French bonds has risen from 180 milliards in May, 1940, to 210 milliards in December. 1940. It "Known that to meet these immediate needs, the Vichy Government has resorted printing without restraint. What the result will be is easy to sec. It will be a worthless! frane, without any relation to any currency except the: mark.
The French Empire which remains loyal to Vichy should not forget -that their euro reueles have been tied to the French frane at a fixed exchange rate. Only recently the French Minister of Colonies attempted to reassure the Empire on this point, but there is evidence that German troops in North' Africa are now paying fifty franes for a twenty-frane packet of cigarettes, and are even tipping shoe-blacks twenty' francs a time, in proof of the value that attaches to the French currency. Rationing of consumption and the fixing of prices can only keep the facts of inflation hidden. They cannot
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.