Lace Crisis; Young Plan

Not the London Naval Conference but reparations and the U. S. tariff put wrinkles in the brow of Prime Minister Tardieu last week. Fiery French speeches, parades, and burning editorials made a hectic week. It started with pandemonium in the Chamber of Deputies. In the debate on ratifying The Hague reparations agreements ("The Young Plan") chunky Edouard Herriot, perennial Mayor of Lyons, onetime radical Prime Minister (1926) thumped the tribune and boomed:

"The recommendation to approve The Hague settlement is being moved by members of the government majority, which is generally regarded as being hostile to peace!"

Came a hurricane of cheers, boos, whistles and the thunderclap banging of desks. Purple behind his pince nez, Prime Minister Tardieu shook his fist, shouted: "You have no right to say that!" Prudently President of the Chamber Fernand Bouisson clapped his silk hat on his head, stalked from the room. Chunky M. Herriot hopped down from the tribune, started down the stairway that faces the section where sit deputies of the right (Monarchist) wing. Instantly they were on their feet, rushed menacingly towards him. Then up rose Minister of War Andre Maginot, six-feet-seven and broad in proportion. He planted himself between M. Herriot and his foes. M. Herriot suddenly detoured to his own seat, sat down.

Three days before, Messieurs les Deputes had started to talk about lace and automobiles. French lacemakers have had a hard time, of it for the past five or six years. Fashion has shunned their stuffs. Last Spring with the return of long skirts and softer, more feminine lines, lace came back. French lacemakers rejoiced. But their hopes were dashed by the publication fortnight ago of the new U. S. tariff. Lace, embroideries and tulle, depending on quality, are saddled with a duty of from 90% to 150 and 300%.

"It is the beginning," wrote the Paris Journal, "of the deliberate policy announced by Mr. Hoover in Boston during his campaign, aimed at the exclusion of foreign competition by the United States. ... In matters of business the Americans are not given to sentimentality."

In Calais, centre of the machine-made lace industry, an employers' and workmen's committee of seven called politely at the offices of U. S. consul General James G. Carter, explained that what they were going to do was not directed against the people or the Government of the U. S. Then, while the voice of Henri Ravisse, Vice President of the Association of Lace and Tulle Manufacturers, boomed through loudspeakers, "Be calm! Be calm!" 20,000 burghers of Calais paraded mournfully through the streets.

In Paris the deputies were not calm. Wrathful lacemakers' representatives demanded revenge duties of 200% on U. S. automobiles and parts, prohibitive duties on other articles. Up rose Georges Scapini, famed "blind deputy" who lost his sight in the War, whose affliction seems to have given him a detachment and a vision denied most of his colleagues.

"American cars," said he drily, "are already selling in France for twice the price asked for them in the United States. The existing rates provide ample protection. French automobile interests are seeking to bar American cars in order to permit them to allow their business to vegetate without the benefit of the improvements and progress which were required of them when trying to sell against reasonable competition from foreign manufacturers.

"We must not forget that we sell $100,000,000 worth of manufactured articles annually in the United States while we import from them only about $32,000,000 worth. . . . The Americans are in an excellent position to retaliate."

After a full week of Olympic parliamentary games, Messieurs les Deputes abruptly quieted down to the Young Plan, passed it by the overwhelming vote of 530 to 55 in a comparatively placid session, sent the Plan to the Senate where it is sure to pass.

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