Resigned, Not Out

Immediately upon the return of Chancellor Luther and Foreign Minister Stresemann from London, where they signed the Locarno Treaties (see INTERNATIONAL), the Cabinet of the Reich resigned. Chancellor Luther had been obliged to promise that his Government would take this step in order to gain sufficient votes for the Locarno Treaties in the Reichstag (TIME, Nov. 30), the understanding being that the Socialists and others who came to the Treaties' rescue would be rewarded with posts in the next Cabinet. Of course the fact that the three Nationalists in the Cabinet had previously resigned as a protest against the Treaties (TIME, Nov. 2) had also made it desirable that the "rump-Cabinet" thus created should step down when the Treaties were safe.

President von Hindenburg was universally expected to ask Dr, Luther to form the new Cabinet, with the foregone conclusion that he would ask Herr Stresemann to return as Foreign Minister. According to custom the members of a German Cabinet that has resigned continue to exercise their respective powers until their successors are appointed. There is thus no need for immediate action on the part of President von Hindenburg. Well informed observers opined that New Year's Day might come and go before the new Cabinet is created.