Fall of Caillaux

Of late, ever lowering storm clouds have threatened to blot out M. Joseph Caillaux as Finance Minister of France. Since the Painleve Cabinet superseded that of M. Herriot (TIME, Apr. 27) he has fought a stubborn but losing battle to balance the French budget without resorting to inflation or a levy upon capital (TIME, May 25), and failed in his attempts to devise a scheme for paying off the country's debts.

In France, as elsewhere, nothing fails like failure. And last week M. Caillaux added insult to failure by two acts: 1) He defied the powerful Radical-Socialist bloc, which he had attempted to conciliate at its caucus in Nice (TIME, Oct. 23), by flatly declaring that he would "bar the way" to the adoption of its pet capital-levy panacea; 2) He refused the demands of Premier Painleve, Foreign Minister Briand and the rest of the Cabinet that he resign as a politically insolvent Finance Minister.

Faced with such truculence within its ranks, the Cabinet resigned, "ousting" M. Caillaux by a process which superficially resembled cutting off its head to spite its nose. Actually the process was not so rash, for President Doumergue promptly called upon M. Painleve to step up again into the Premiership from which he had momentarily stepped down.

For his Finance Minister the "new" Premier straightway chose himself, and ingeniously created the office of "Budget Minister," into which he popped M. Georges Bonnet, 36-year-old Radical-Socialist Deputy. Under this plan the Premier-Finance Minister announced that he would be personally charged with funding the country's external debts, directing loans and exchange, supervising general disbursements and acting as Government liaison officer with the Banque de France. M. Bonnet, per contra, is to be responsible for national economy and the direction of taxation and the revenue service. Critics found this "divide and finance" scheme to be somewhat remindful of the theoretical abstractions in which its author used to indulge when he was a young mathematical genius lecturing at the Ecole Normale.

Meanwhile the name of Premier Painleve's "new" Foreign Minister was observed to be identical with that which had been "erased" a few hours before. It was Aristide Briand. Seven times M. Briand has been Premier of France. His famed War Cabinet contained every living former Premier.* Since his ill-starred attempt to gain "security" for France at Cannes, in 1922, he has steadily built up that ideal into the concrete embodiment which it achieved at Locarno (TIME, Oct. 2 et seq.). Last week, as Acting President of the Council of the League of Nations, he was able to impose peace and a measure of "security" upon the squabbling Greeks and Bulgars (see GREECE). Now he stands forth as the "popular" bulwark to which M. Painleve looks for a large measure of the "psychic support" which he must have if he is to weather the heavy going ahead. It is one of the ironies of French politics that M. Painleve, a then tyro deputy, once delivered an address (one hour long) in the Chamber against M. Briand, entitled The Triumph of Immorality.

THE NEW CABINET: Paul Painleve Premier; Finance

Aristide Briand Foreign Affairs

Camille Chautemps Justice

(Replacing Jules Steeg) Anatole de Monzie Public Works

(Replacing Pierre Laval) Yvon Delbos Education

(Succeeding M. de Monzie)

Edouard Daladier War

Daniel Vincent Commerce

(Replacing Charles Chaumet)

A. Schrameck Interior

Emile Borel Marine

Jean Duran Agriculture

Leon Perrier Colonies

(Replacing Andre Hesse)

Antoine Durafour Labor

Louis Anteriou Pensions

Georges Bonnet Budget

The Significance. This new Cabinet alignment represents a practically complete severance from the Right, and means that Premier Painleve can no longer rely on occasional help from the Bloc National but must sink or swim with the Left. In that quarter he can of course count on Herriot's Radical-Socialists, since a majority of the new Cabinet are of that ilk. But it is considered significant that several Socialists, notably Louis Loucheur, refused portfolios-- which leaves their party free to overthrow the new Cabinet at pleasure.

M. Painleve, when he attempts to secure passage for the Radical-Socialist capital levy, will now be faced in the Senate by a determined Conservative opposition, weirdly headed by (nominally) Radical-Socialist Joseph Caillaux!

Willy-nilly, M. Painleve will be forced to find some 10,000,000 francs a day to keep the French Army in Morocco at its post during the winter--a thankless task. And War Minister Daladier is already faced with the highly delicate situations in Syria (see below).

At present, it is confidently asserted that France cannot do otherwise than let the settlement of her War debts hang fire. Conflicting schools of prophets were battling wordily last week as to whether M. Caillaux would prove more of a Jonah to France "at large" than formerly.

*They were: Briand himself (Premier and Foreign Minister), Viviani (Justice), Ribot (Finance), Doumergue (Colonies), Meline (Agriculture), and, serving as "Ministers without Portfolio," Combes, Leon Bourgeois and de Freycinet.