SHAKING THE TREE

The only surprising aspect of Pierre Laval's resignation is that he was not forced to take this definite step many months ago. For the man who was the white hope of France when he formed his ministry last June this defeat is particularly ignominious since it implies more than the usual failure of a French premier: Laval's party did not fall from power; it merely fell from Laval.

It was incvitable that Laval and his Radical Socialist party break up a partnership which every day was growing more embarrassing for all concerned. For while the Radical Socialist party is far from what the name would suggest to the American mind, being further on the conservative side than the French Socialists, it became impossible for such liberals as Deladier and Herriot to reconcile themselves to the Premier's increasingly reactionary tendencies.

Just how closely connected Laval is with the "interests" Frenchmen can make only the most hazardous guesses, but it is clear that during the past few years his sympathies have swerved far closer the right than they had been when the swarthy Anvergnat made his entrance into French polities. The ill-disguised reluctance with which he took steps to dissolve or even curb the "leagues," meaning chiefly that Fascist in Republican's clothing, the Criox de Feu, was not received with patience or good will by the Premier's party. In the eyes of political observers France has recently been reaching the crossroads in internal affairs, and she must now choose between Fascism or some creed skin to Socialism. Perhaps it was the mission of Laval to postpone the day of reckoning. But still the charge has been brought against him of winking slyly at the reactionary party, and this in the France of today is unforgivable.

Premier Laval's most strking failure has been in his attitude toward the Italo-Ethiopian crisis. His complete lack of sentiment for the honor of the League of Nations and his cynical efforts to let Mussolini have his way in East Africa have been too unprincipled even for Gallic tastes. The so-called Hoare-Laval peace proposals which so nearly sent a British cabinet to its doom also did sufficient harm to Laval's already shaky reputation as an international peacemaker. Realistic France must now admit that the way to insure peace is not to let Mussolini have a free hand but rather to crush him before he and his imitators more seriously upset the order of the world.

Socialist leader Leon Blum joyfully said that the Left Wingers "shook the Radical plum tree until Laval fell out." In judging the conduct of Laval during past months it appears that he never was really up in that plum tree. He was merely hiding behind it.