Butcher's Son's Cabinet

There is little accounting for the Chamber of Deputies. The same Chamber that cut Prime Minister Tardieu's majority to seven, that gave Prime Minister Steeg a majority of ten and then booted him out, suddenly softened last week toward the new Cabinet of Prime Minister Pierre Laval, a man no bigger than either of his predecessors. To Prime Minister Laval the Chamber gave a handsome working majority of 54 on his first test vote, a vote that seemed to promise continuation of the Laval cabinet perhaps until after the presidential elections in May.

Experts saw back of this sizable vote the glittering pince-nez of Andre Tardieu, antepenultimate Prime Minister. Pierre Laval, son of a provincial butcher, once a hot Socialist but now leaning more and more to the Right, is known to be a protege of Tardieu, who seems unable or unwilling to form a ministry of his own at this time.

There were few newsworthy appointments. Potent, shambling Aristide Briand maintains his traditional post as Minister of Foreign Affairs.* In the Ministry of Agriculture--where occurred the Wheat Scandal that felled the Steeg Cabinet--is none other than kinetic Andre Tardieu himself. Sad-eyed Georges Leygues of the sweeping mustachios lost his post as Minister of Interior to the new Prime Minister. Gigantic, limping Andre Maginot, Tardieu's sabre-rattling Minister of War, held the same post again last week.

U. S. and British correspondents devoted most space to one of the least important Cabinet officers, Blaise Diagne, Under Secretary of State for the Colonies. Cabinet Minister Diagne is 58, has been a Deputy since 1914, is an able orator, served during the War as Commissioner of Colonial Recruiting, is fully competent for his post. Cabinet Minister Diagne is also a Negro, a very black Negro. He comes from Senegal and is the first of his race ever to hold Cabinet office in France. U. S. sportswriters remembered Blaise Diagne last week as the French Deputy who rose magnificently in the Chamber in 1922 in defense of his compatriot Battling Siki, kinky-haired light heavyweight. M. Siki had just knocked out the then popular Georges Carpentier and had been ruled from the ring by the French Boxing Federation. So eloquently did Deputy Diagne plead that Battling Siki was reinstated, only to be shot dead near a Manhattan speakeasy in 1925.

* In every Cabinet since April 1925, excepting the two-day Herriot Ministry in July 1926.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.