Trust-Buseng in France
General de Gaulle addressed a mass meeting in his native city Of Lille last Sunday in which he did not shrink from declaring his Policy in regard to some vital aspects of social reconstruction. He announced the intention of the Provisional Government to break the French industrial trusts and prepare the way for a planned itational economy. The policy it aimed at was that the State should conduct the entire economic effort of the nation, without, however, necessarily excluding private initiative and legitimate profit. How much this means, of course, is not clear until definite programmes are announced, and the sphere in which action will be taken defined. The pre-war industrial troubles of France sprang to a large extent from the fact that there appeared to be no common meeting-ground between conservative industrialists on the one side and extremist workers' organisations on the other ; and the matter is complicated today by the fact that considerable numbers of Frenchmen appear to be convinced that the latter, the industrialists, are the people who were guilty of collaboration ; and it is understandable that there is no easier way of arousing prejudice at this moment than to accuse anyone of being a collaborator. No doubt the Provisional Govern- ment will find itself busy for some time to come in doing first things first—restoring order, getting essential services going, pro- viding for defence—and it will be anxious to feel the pulse of the nation as a whole before it commits itself to vast long-range pro- grammes of reconstruction. None the less no one would desire that General de Gaulle should be silent on these great problems, since it is desirable that the country should know where it stands. It remains to be seen whether he is capable of uniting the nation on the common ground of the essentials needed for restoring France.
