Passing the French Budget
The never very edifying spectacle of the French Assembly debating the Budget is going forward this year in the shadow of the next general election. Consequently, the efforts of the parties to avoid taking any action which would prejudice their popularity with the electors are even less dignified than usual. The Finance Committee of the Assembly found its own peculiar solution by presenting a draft Budget containing a deficit of some 100,000 million francs, reduced for public consumption, by a little judicious juggling with terms, to 23,000 million. M. Bidault, to his credit, refused to have either the deficit or the juggling. He wanted, he said, an honest Budget ; and there can be no denying that, in the present state of the French economy, an unbalanced Budget cannot be honest. But the Government only survived a vote of confidence on this issue by six votes, and later it scraped through_ by even narrower margins. The Assembly, led by the Radicals, who will apparently go to any lengths rather than offend the most intransigent peasant voter, then put itself in the absurd position of accepting the civil and defence estimates and denying the Government the power to raise new taxes to meet them. The struggle still continues. and although the centre of controversy is now shifting from the Assembly to the Council of the Republic, there is not much hope that it will be over before the end of the year. There are clearly many deputies who would like to vote for the Budget and against it at the same time—an affirmative to keep the Government afloat. and a negative to placate the electors. But as the last votes of confidence arc taken, it is a reasonable guess that, since nobody else wants the cares of office, M. Bidault will bc left with them on his shoulders.
