Cabinet on Brink

Two votes--such was the breathlessly narrow margin by which the French Cabinet avoided defeat in the Chambre des Deputes last week.

Had not twelve Cabinet Ministers taken care to be in the Palais Bourbon and cast their votes, the Government's majority of two would have been a minority of ten, necessitating the resignation of Prime Minister Raymond Poincare, famed "Savior of the Franc."

The fact is that M. Poincare's present coalition of the Right-Center is not expected to hold together much longer. The potent Cartel des Gauches or Coalition of Left Parties--which went into eclipse when Edouard Herriot failed as Prime Minister to save the franc (TIME, April 20, 1925)--is now reviving with esprit and kudos under the leadership of Down-and-Outer Herriot, who may soon be Up-and-In.

Since Prime Minister Poincare is thoroughly tired of office after two and a half years of struggle and achievement, he did not even condescend to appear in the Chamber, last week, to defend his Government. Though suffering from only the lightest attack of influenza, the wise old "Lion of Lorraine" kept to his bed, and let the demagogs in the Palais Bourbon roar. For periods of five, ten, 15 minutes it was impossible to distinguish any orator's impassioned periods above the babel. When a vote of confidence was taken -- on a trifling issue of local politics -- no one seemed to care much whether or not the Government went down, but it didn't.

On the morning after the Cabinet had squeaked through by two votes, M. Poincare reminded correspondents with characteristic bravado of his threat when he last took office (TIME, Aug. 2 , 1926), namely, that so long as the Chamber gave him a majority of even one vote he would not trouble to resign.