Cock's Crow

Early this year the tightest wad who was ever Governor of the Bank of France, fusty "abnormally honest" M. Clement Moret, gave way to that slightly looser wad, sandy-mustached M. Jean Tannery, amid uneasy rumors of "inflation" (TIME, Jan. 14). Since then France has changed cabinets and new Premier Pierre Laval is not tinged as was old Premier Pierre Etienne Flandin with any suspicion of wanting to perpetrate a New Deal al'americaino. With Parliament adjourned and the new Cabinet embarked on a drastic program of balancing the budget and reducing the cost of life's necessities by decree laws, Governor Tannery felt so good last week that he indulged in a loud fiscal cock-a-doodle-do!

"Our currency has been defended against attacks of every kind and now offers increased guarantees for secure investment," crowed Cock Tannery. "No other country possesses such enormous reserves of funds at present hoarded. Although deplorable in itself, this factor, which has been harmful up to the present. may now be turned to use and in the battle against Depression be made to play the role of fresh troops coming into battle and bringing Victory with them."

Normally the reverse of such exuberance, Governor Tannery makes a musty hobby of 17th and 18th Century first editions on which he writes dull, learned monographs. Dressed in the conventional black of French functionaries, he often noses unnoticed among the bookstalls along the Seine, seeking a bargain-treasure which he bears off in quiet triumph to his admiring wife and daughters three.

Ruthless in defense of the franc, M. Tannery breathed the word which recently barred from France smart Lieut. Colonel Francis Norris, a suave British bear raider. Last week a nod from Governor Tannery expelled another British bear, 27-year-old Serge Rubenstein, brilliant Cambridge economist and founder of Paris' Franco-Asiatic Bank. A third young man who sold too many francs short to suit Gold Cock Tannery was Bertrand Coles Neidecker, fugitive U. S. founder of Paris' closed Travelers Bank (TIME, Aug. 5).

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