NEWS OF THE WEEK
DEMOCRACY has lately come to be regarded in Europe ' as a static!, even a reactionary force, vet no dictator- :hip has shown so intense an activity as the new French Government in its first week of office. It would be a mistake to suppose that the revOIntionary programme of social legislation before the Chamber this week has been extorted from the GOvernment by the strikes ; the new Bills give legislatii-e form -to the considered policy of the Front Populairr, and M. Blum may even have been glad of the excuse to put that policy into effect so quickly. But to legislate, especially in France, is not necessarily to have the laws observed, and the Government will have greater difficulty in applying its new measures in practice than in getting them passed by the Chamber. But the activity of the Government is so clearly controlled by a considered plan of campaign that the danger of non-observance is diminished. Even the preoccupation of the strikes has not prevented it from purging the army and police of Fascists or from reorganising the Service departments under a civilian Ministry of Defence. Undoubtedly the expense of the new legislation will increase the temptation to devalue, as the easiest way out of financial difficulty, but M. Blum's Left Wing supporters are intent, by taxation on high incomes, on making the rich pay. M. Blum cannot afford, politically, to abandon the franc now : but he is creating for himself and his Government a prestige which may allow them later to devalue, if they judge it necessary.
