On Monday in the French Chamber M. :Monis, the new
Prime Minister, made a statement of policy. The chief financial proposal was an income-tax scheme which is only in accordance with expectations, as M. Caillaux is Minister of Finance. In electoral reform " free scope " (we quote from the Times) will be left "to the initiative of the Chamber." As for the railway strikes, M. Monis's language was a faint echo of K Briand's. Sabotage is to be repressed ; pensions are to be made retrospective ; and strikers not guilty of anarchy are to be re-employed on the State line. This last promise had already been made by M. Briand. M. Monis tried to render the vagueness of his words impressive and
attractive by reciting with much feeling a passage which exalted the merits of toleration and kindness towards employees. Whereupon a Deputy exclaimed, " You are speak- ing like a preacher." On the question of the Congregations, M. Monis again followed the principles of M. Briand, and he followed them still closer in saying that he would govern with the help of all that intermediate opinion which stops short of hating French institutions on the one side and of advocating violence on the other. His chief difference from M. Briand, apart from ability, is that he avoids the word apaisement. He received a vote of confidence by a majority of 195. But it is difficult to see that the new Government has any particular ,son for existing, and the first controversial debate is likely to test its stability severely.
