FRENCH FURBELOWS

The French Chamber of Deputies has overturned another cabinet and sent one more prime minister to join the vast army of the unemployed premiers. For the ninth time in his long Parliamentary career. Aristide Briand has gone down before an unfavorable vote and turned his job over to a luckless successor.

This sudden internal crisis demonstrates anew the precariousness of the situation in which France finds herself. On the eve of delicate diplomatic negotiations at Geneva and faced by an almost hopelessly involved financial muddle at home, that country is not only without a government but lacks a majority strong enough to form one. The Communists, Radical Socialists, and Nationalists of the extreme right, whose unnatural union is responsible for the ministerial debacle, seems to have been actuated by partisan political considerations rather than by the single minded and unselfish devotion to the welfare of France, necessary if she is to be extricated from the difficulties in which she is floundering. Further to the situation, it is not practicable to dissolve the Chamber and appeal for a new election because certain necessary bills have not been passed.

The outlook is unquestionably dark; no one knows whether the morrow will bring forth a dictator or a superb democratic leader who can solve French problems with constitutional tact. Certainly, the present crisis furnishes the international fascistic with a powerful argument for their propaganda against parliamentary rule. An aroused public opinion capable of disciplining the refractory deputies appears to be the only force which can preserve the present form of government.