M. Doumergue
SOME postponements are harmful but others fortunate. When in June of last year the projected visit of M. Doumergue to London was postponed owing to the French political and financial crisis there was the usual regret here proper to so real a disappointment. Now, however, that the French visit has come eleven months later we see that the postponement belonged to the fortunate class. Eleven months ago feeling between the British and French nations was not nearly so happy as it is to-day ; the franc had plunged to the depths ; the French Government was facing a dismal loss of credit and even insolvency ; and the French people, turning hither and thither in their alarmed search for a scapegoat, were laying part of the blame on Great Britain.
It was said that British financiers and British statesmen had been forcing down the franc deliberately for political reasons. Of course, there was no truth in that belief, but the existence of the damaging rtunours would not have been a pleasing framework for the President's visit. True, the rulers and people of Great Britain might have been able, as they certainly would have tried, to assure him of our deep respect and hearty liking for France, and they might have succeeded. On the other hand, they might have failed through the very misfortune of working under a cloud of suspicion. The scene in France is now entirely changed, owing largely to the energy and wisdom of the President himself, and the genuine pleasure which Englishmen are taking in his visit arouses no idea in France that behind hospitality there lies any cold political motive.
M. Doumergue is probably the most popular man in France. A typical son of the Midi, he has sunshine in his character as well as in his face. He is not one of the brilliant orators of France nor one of her daring statesmen, but for sound solid sense, for shrewdness, for cautious foresight and for the capacity to deal amiably and sympathetically with his fellow men, so that he can make the most of his intellectual qualities in their interest and his own, he would be hard to beat.
The system by which French Presidents are elected has often been derided as one which puts the second or third best man into office. In a sense that is true, for a very commnanding personality commonly excites too much enmity for enough of the various groups to unite in his favour. But in the election of a Pope or of a President of the United States there is often the same cancelling out of strong rivals ; and in France, in Rome and in the United States the qualities which bring a man to success under the given conditions frequently fit him in an eminent degree for his post.
One might have expected M. Dournergue to have the volatile Southern characteristics which make many of his fellow Provencals unstable even while they are extremely engaging, but perhaps M. Doumergue's Protestant upbringing introduced the element of steadi- ness. However that may be, it is impossible to imagine anyone who could have served France better when a successor had to be found to M. Millerand. M. Millerand, in language if not in practice, had strained the Constitu. tional prerogatives of a President, and in 1921 M. Herriot, with the uncompromising aid of M. Painlevi., was strong enough to force his resignation. France was already at the edge of the abyss. Who was to save her ?
It was lucky indeed that the choice fell upon M. Doumergue. He saw at the crisis of the trouble (which was not reached till July, 1926) what hardly one Englishman could have perceived at that moment– that the right man to become Prime Minister and to save the franc was M. Poincare. The manner in which M. Poincare has made everyone forget his Ruhr policy and has forced the franc back to stability is one of the seven wonders of modern political history. Without M. Doumergue, first sheltering him and then, so far as the Constitution permitted, collaborating with him, M. Poineare could hardly have performed the feat.
Take two other examples of M. Doumergue shrewdness. At the beginning of 1914 he was Prime Minister for a short time, and feeling convinced that Germany meant trouble he absolutely refused to abandon the law of three years' service in the French Arin,y. Rather than give way he resigned. The War had not been going on long when M. Doumergue, who was then Minister of the Colonies, suggested that each of the Allied nations should pledge itself not to make a separate peace. The result was the London Pact. It is enough to say now that there were times when the Allies had cause to be devoutly thankful for M. Doumergue s foresight. The Pact brought complete confidence that whatever happened there would be no sudden or secret crumbling away of the Allied strength. The British people contentedly accept the tbs• similarity between their own and French intellectual processes—which, indeed, it would be absurd to ignore and which sometimes makes understanding difficult because they see in France an unmatched gracefulness, a noble liberality of thought, and in a supreme degree the art of living. The fact that M. Doumerguc has the respect and affection of Frenchmen in an exceptional degree gives us the assurance that in honouring him we are honouring all that we admire in the French nation, all that has contributed so signally to the enlightenment of Europe.
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