FRANCE: Tardieu the Tamer

The potency test of a French Prime Minister is whether he can lash his budget through the Chamber of Deputies by Jan. 1. Nobody had done it for years until 1926, when great Raymond Poincaré made budget punctuality the crux of his saviorship of the franc. Last week the savior’s smart disciple and successor, Prime Minister André Tardieu. battled to equal the record of his chief, battled also to vindicate his own nickname, “The Most American of Frenchmen” (TIME, Nov. 11).

This year budget punctuality is not imperative. France is vastly prosperous. Surplus tax collections have been piling up over estimates month after month. Therefore, argued many a Deputy last week, why not go back to the good old pre-Poincaré system? In those days the budget debate was a tournament of oratory lasting well into March, April or even May.

The object was to give every Deputy a chance to speak for at least half a day on the budget clauses particularly interesting to his constituents. It was a grand old system—forensics in the reverberant pork barrel.

Vigorously last week Tardieu L’Américainlashed into the Deputies a proposal to hold three sessions every week day until the budget is voted. If they must talk, let it be morning, noon and night, until the bitter end. With much grumbling they assented. Then Tardieu did a double-snapper with his whip—demanded that they sit thrice a day on Sunday too. Rebellion loomed, but Ringmaster Tardieu fired a figurative blank cartridge, demanded a vote of confidence. After less than a month in Power he has the Deputies so thoroughly cowed that they licked his hand 350 to 142.