L'Experience Pinay
M. Pinay's success as Prime Minister of France is undoubtedly due first and foremost to the consistency with which he pursues his chosen course. The French Assembly had persistently. refused to vote tax increases. Consequently, said M. Pinay, a really impressive loan must be raised to meet expenditure which the Assembly itself recommended. The finance committee pronounced against the loan, having taken a particular dislike to the gold guarantee which would be its main recommendation to cautious investors. M. Pinay insisted, without hesitation, that the finance committee must be over- ridden. The Assembly duly rejected the finance committee's report, by 332 votes to 207, on Tuesday night. At the last minute the Communists and Socialists had demanded that the Assembly should postpone discussion on the Loan Bill in order to debate the affairs of Tunisia. M. Pinay insisted that the Assembly should stick to the point—his point. It did. So now the Loan Bill, which as it stands is a French_investor's dream, goes forward for discussion. The proposed loan will carry interest at 3.5 per cent., tax free. Its value will be tied to the market quotations for the gold napoleon, and if the price of the napoleon rises the redemption value of the bonds will rise accordingly—thus insulating the investor to a great extent from the danger of inflation in France. The names of subscribers will not be published, so that tax-evaders who wish to invest, on advantageous terms, their illicit gains of the past few years may do so. In fact if anything can attract funds out of a million French mattresses and other domestic hiding places, this loan is it. The moral and economic objections to it are obvious. But the possibility that it will arrest the dangerous inflationary tendency in France cannot be denied. If it succeeds then M. Pinay will consolidate still further the strong political position he is building up.
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