"COME' ACROSS, MARIANNE!"

Nobody likes to pay taxes. It is the most natural thing in the world, therefore, that President Coolidge's plan for tax reduction is everywhere received with tumultuous applause. Everyone will agree that expenses of government should be restricted and that taxes should be proportionately reduced.

There is, however a limit below which expenses cannot be cut and government still function efficiently. No one need fear that expenses will fall below this limit--the bottomless public purse is surety enough. But the question arises: "Will the gross reduction in expenses suffice to make an appreciable lowering of individual taxes?" The answer is doubtful, but there is evidence to make one believe that it will not.

It hardly seems like simple coincidence that, at the very moment there is so much thik of tax reduction in this country, pressure is being put upon France to fund her debt and begin payment to the United States. These events are too closely interrelated to have just happened so. The evidence is that tax reduction, to which Mr. Coolidge has pledged himself, is dependent upon an immediate commencement of gold shipments from France, since the administration realizes that no amount of official parsimony will suffice to lower individual taxes to the point the public demands.

But where is France to get gold? Economists say that the fall of the franc was caused by the depletion of the gold reserves in the Bank of France. If France has no gold, she must depend on trade to replenish her stock. To rebuild her industry and commerce, France must have time; but time is the one thing American policy cannot grant her if there is to be immediate tax reduction it home.

It looks easy to say to France: "We wont across now you come across"; but there is more to it than that. This attitude involves the fundamental fallacy of demanding gold where there is none, and of antagonizing a friend and benefactor by an impossible severity. If there is wisdom in Washington, the United States will foster the restoration of French finance as the first condition of repayment, and tax reduction at home will be left entirely to the slower but surer policy of retrenchment.

Cancellation of the French debt is not in question. Premier Herriot has made it plain that all France asks is time to acquit herself honorably. In the midst of debate hot words have been uttered both in the French Chamber and in the American Senate. It is now high time statesmen return to sanity and newspapers to the truth.