Record Fall

Two years ago, U. S. students at Paris celebrated with notable champagne-bibbing the fact that they could get, roughly, 29 francs for a dollar--and a drinkable quart of champagne for the 29 francs. That was the greatest number of francs ever* exchangeable for a dollar in the history of the world. Then the firm of Morgan loaned the French Government $100,000,000; and one could get only some 14 francs for the dollar. Last spring the franc began to slip badly again. Last week the American Express Co., at Paris, was paying out approximately/- 28 francs for the dollars which its clients smilingly proffered. In Les Nights Clubs Americains, atop Montmartre, the good-old-bad-old times had come again--though indeed the quarts of champagne in that vicinity were being held at 100 francs and up.

The Reason. Throughout the world financiers placed this discouraging value upon the franc (the record "low" since the Morgan loan) because at Paris there continued, in the Chamber of Denuties, that ignoble squabble (TIME, Feb. 22, et ante) which has brought the legislative machinery of France to practically a full stop within the last few weeks.

19 1/2 Hours. At 11 a. m., early in the week, the Deputies seated themselves for what was scheduled to be the show-down session on the tax measures which they have been considering so long. At 6:30 a. m. next morning the Deputies out, after having literally hashed all the measures presented to them into such a jumble that the greatest fiscal experts in France disagreed by hundreds of thousands of francs as to what revenue the resulting bill would produce. None the less, the Deputies passed it and gave Premier Briand a vote of confidence, 258 to 145--i.e., with over 100 abstentions, enough to have overthrown the Premier if even half the abstentees had voted against him. Finally, the Chamber voted itself a much needed recess.

Lottery. The complete chaos into which this session degenerated was well shown two days later, when a clause in the tax bill empowering the state to hold lotteries was discovered to have been passed, although scarcely 1% of the deputies knew it had ever been considered.

Former Premier Herriot, President of the Chamber, had read out the lottery clause while the Deputies were quarreling among themselves so loudly that no one heard him. He had asked if there were any objections. Still no one heard him. He had declared the clause adopted in default of objections. Still no one heard him. He then forgot all about it. Two days later, someone observed that the clause had been duly recorded as "passed."

Aftermath. Premier Briand sourly watched his Finance Minister, M. Doumer, take this rattlebrained bill to the Senate. Admittedly it was almost worthless. M. Doumer's experts opined that it might produce 2 1/2 billion francs of added revenue, whereas at least 5 billions are necessary. The Senate Finance Committee's first act was to prune away some of its notorious "spoof" clauses (TIME, Feb. 15), mere legislative "nifties"/-/- not worthy of the Senators' laughter. The general impression was that the bill could scarcely be worse. But it was at least a bill! It was, in fact, a great triumph for M. Briand.

Since autumn, three Finance Ministers (Caillaux, Painleve and Loucheur) and two Premiers (Painleve twice) have fallen on this one tax issue, without being able to get as far as MM. Briand and Doumer got last week--without being able to get the Chamber to indorse any program whatever for recouping the finances of France. Therefore, M. Briand's triumph was great. The Senators, eager to help him, prepared to "amend" the crazy-quilt bill into something workable. It was considered certain that they will stretch the constitutional limits of their amending power to the uttermost. Presumably when the bill goes back to the Chamber it will embody most of the measures for "indirect taxation" desired by Finance Minister Doumer (TIME, Feb. 1).

*The official low was recorded on the Manhattan Stock Exchange, March 19, 1921, at 3.46-c- per franc, or 28.61 francs per dollar.

/-28.09 on the Paris Bourse.

/-/-Such as that every Deputy must give notice of how many horses he owned and the total horsepower of his automobiles!