"Work! Discipline! Union!"

With native common sense French statesmen decided the time had come last week to reef in just about all the loose sail La Republique let out when she called M. Leon Blum to the helm as her first Socialist Premier, went tearing to the Left under the flag of the Popular Front (TIME, June 15, 1936). With elections to be held next week in every canton of France, the Popular Front Cabinet, now captained by Premier Camille Chautemps with Leon Blum his first mate as Vice Premier, had to decide last week on what course to put their craft in order to win most votes. They reached a decision which a few months ago would have made Communist, Socialist and Labor leaders call their French followers to riot in the streets. Paradoxically, the Cabinet sounded what many an anti-Fascist thinks of as traditional Fascist keynotes: "Work! Discipline! Union!" "The Council of Ministers affirms," said their pre-election manifesto, "the unanimous will of the nation to defend its prosperity by great efforts of work, of discipline and of union!"

What part, if any, the Communist Party had in all this was veiled last week, but Vice-Premier Blum had delivered a long harangue to his Socialists, begging them to support the move the Cabinet was about to make, and there had been earnest conferences with the round kingpin of French Labor, pot-bellied Leon Jouhaux whose proletarian C. G. T. (Confederation Generate du Travail) boasts in France the colossal membership of 5,000,000. All these bigwigs of the Left decided that the French voter, predominantly of the peasant class, has so reacted to the results of Popular Front rule that last week to win his vote the Cabinet, as New York Timesman P. J. Philip aptly cabled from Paris, "altered the whole course along which France has been traveling since the Popular Front Government came into power 15 months ago."

Solemn was the occasion of making this about face and august was the place, for the whole Leftist Cabinet journeyed out to meet President Albert Lebrun amid the once royal splendors of the Chateau de Rambouillet, there made public their new sailing orders in an official five-point communique: 1) The Cabinet finds that French factory production must be increased and will force it up by modifying the 40-hour week law by decree, permitting longer hours to be worked in cases where the State finds this advisable, but also forcing factory owners to install more efficient machinery: 2) The Cabinet "is resolute not to permit to happen again" the sit-down strikes which paralyzed French industry last spring, also to make both employer and employes fulfill their mutual contracts; 3) In foreign affairs "the Government will maintain firmly its peace policy. ... In agreement with Great Britain it expects to obtain from other countries, as it has practiced itself, respect for non-intervention in the affairs of Spain"; 4) "The Government confirms its absolute opposition to all measures of exchange control, of constraint or autarchy"; 5) The Cabinet pledges in France repression of all foreign agitators whoever they may be.

Most French voters are smart enough to find weasels in this Cabinet declaration, and smart enough to know that a Cabinet dependent on Communists for the support of its coalition will not keep its promise to repress all foreign agitators, but in general the Chateau de Rambouillet communique reassured Frenchmen of property-- whether that property be a small ancestral farm or large deposits in the bank. It was high time reassurance came, for the franc had sunk last week to its lowest in eleven years, and next month $250,000,000 loaned last winter on short term to the Government by private British and French houses falls due and will have to be renewed. This week Premier Chautemps, Vice-Premier Blum, Finance Minister Bonnet and ultimately the Popular Front looked forward not only to the cantonal elections but to the need of further borrowing, therefore to the necessity of winning confidence from substantial people of all sorts, while not losing that of the proletariat. Nervous, the Popular Front Cabinet closed its communique with an intimation that it intends not to resign no matter whether the country swings Right or Left.

Whether or not France is ripening toward Revolution as Spain did last year-- and signs of slowly mounting stress have not been lacking (TIME, Sept. 27, 1937)-- the Cabinet's quick putting over of their helm last week was a heartening tack to keep France still sailing with the steady trade winds of Democracy.

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